Author Topic: WWl , Church Commemoration.  (Read 1585 times)

Offline Viktoria

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #9 on: Friday 12 October 18 08:30 BST (UK) »
On the lunchtime news yesterday,74,000 figures of soldiers in shrouds have been placed by the artist who created them on the grass in front of the
Thiepval memorial to remember those with no known grave from The battle of The Somme.
The display is known as “Shrouds of the Somme”.
That there were very many we know about but I could not visualise so many, but to see the small figures all laid out in neat rows as are the graves in the cemeteries was dreadful.
What a shocking number and that with the 33,000 plus on The Menin Gate-
well words are not enough.
Viktoria.

Offline Rhododendron

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #10 on: Friday 12 October 18 08:33 BST (UK) »
Yes I saw that too, Viktoria.  And what a wonderful thing that Artist had created!  But very moving too.

Offline BumbleB

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #11 on: Friday 12 October 18 08:50 BST (UK) »
My grandad is one of those named at Thiepval.  I've visited the site on a number of occasions, as well as Menin Gate, Tyne Cot and numerous other CWGC sites.  My admiration is not only for those who lost their lives in battle, but also the staff of CWGC who take such wonderful care of the memorials.
Transcriptions and NBI are merely finding aids.  They are NOT a substitute for original record entries.
Remember - "They'll be found when they want to be found" !!!
If you don't ask the question, you won't get an answer.
He/she who never made a mistake, never made anything.
Archbell - anywhere, any date
Kendall - WRY
Milner - WRY
Appleyard - WRY

Offline River Tyne Lass

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #12 on: Friday 12 October 18 09:52 BST (UK) »
Perhaps when a name is read out a small candle could be lit for each person being commemorated.  Perhaps poignant poetry which may have been printed in local newspapers at the time could be read out and put up on a display.

This local North East website has some examples of poetry which was written during and just after the Great War in our local papers.
I like many of these poems including 'Two Silent Minutes' which appeared in the Whitley Seaside Chronicle & Visitor's Gazette on the first anniversary.  Scroll down to see this.  Some poems were sent home by soldiers and printed in the newspaper.

http://www.newmp.org.uk/article.php?categoryid=100&articleid=120&displayorder=11
Conroy, Fitzpatrick, Watson, Miller, Davis/Davies, Brown, Senior, Dodds, Grieveson, Gamesby, Simpson, Rose, Gilboy, Malloy, Dalton, Young, Saint, Anderson, Allen, McKetterick, McCabe, Drummond, Parkinson, Armstrong, McCarroll, Innes, Marshall, Atkinson, Glendinning, Fenwick, Bonner


Offline Viktoria

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #13 on: Friday 12 October 18 12:04 BST (UK) »
Thank you all so much,a little later in the year before Christmas we have a bauble service,when people,not just the usual congregation put a bauble on the Christmas tree in memory of whoever they wish.
Names are read out and families hang their bauble with names attached.
We are having a special tree for Ramsbottom men who were killed in WWl and whose names are to be read out during the service.
The Ramsbottom branch of the British Legion will as always carry the flags
and there is a definitive list of those who did not come back home so we will have every name.
Hopefully some family members will be there as they always are ,proud ,grandchildren etc.
Rawtenstall museum have contacted me and will get back re a copy of Percy Turnbull’s memorial there.
If there is time we will try to get family members organised to put the baubles on the tree,otherwise Legion members will stand in I think.
Lots to do and it is a great privilege to do it,whatever we can do is so little
for so much.
Thanks again everyone.
I include a poem,
Down in the viscous dragging mud they lie
Adding to the mire their youthful blood.
No peaceful graves for them as yet while
Each explosion brings about their savage resurrection
Then see we yet again their ghastly moon white faces
Grinning a mockery of “Grant unto them eternal rest”.
Their feeble comedy of “A Blighty one” seems now a cruel ,tasteless obscene jest.
Into holes “known only unto God “ we push them
Then throw a slimy board across to gain
Another yard of blood soaked Flemish ground,
While screaming shells and bullets vie with the louder,silent cry of
“Dear God will it never end”?
And meanwhile far behind the lines in some elegant chateau
The C.inC plots and hones his foolproof plans
For how to use to best effect the cavalry.
The poor and bloody infantry must prepare the ground
But what he does not see,is the infantry
Are now the ground he’ll send the cavalry over.
In heroic waves they will face the vicious guns
And for cavalry read Calvary but for Judas ,not The Huns.

Offline despair

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #14 on: Friday 12 October 18 13:41 BST (UK) »
A slight aside,I wrote the following some years ago as a tribute to the last surviving serving soldiers nearing the end:

They are all but gone now,
Grandsons of Crimea,
Fathers of Normandy,
Survivors of The Somme
Compatriots consigned
To winding sheets
Of mud
Their century beckoned
Young blood enthralled
The spectre of slaughter
Unformed
They have aged no more
Since battle
They will age no more
Soon enough

Regards
Roger

Offline Viktoria

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #15 on: Friday 12 October 18 13:57 BST (UK) »
That is lovely, if such a subject can be but you know what I mean.

We two will meet again and kiss our fond hellos.
We’llwalk together hand in hand just as we used to go.
But age will not have wearied you nor the years condemned,

But I am changed,I am not as I was then.
But love they say changes not when it alteration finds
And even though  the years have passed
The marriage of our minds has stood the test of time.
And all the lonely years will seem but fleeting days
When we two meet again on God’s  serene tomorrow.


The first and last lines are borrowed from Vera Britten’s Testament of Youth.
It was a little excercise in a writing class.
Viktoria.

Offline despair

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #16 on: Friday 12 October 18 14:08 BST (UK) »
...and a little of Laurence Binyon inbetween?

Regards
Roger

Offline Viktoria

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Re: WWl , Church Commemoration.
« Reply #17 on: Friday 12 October 18 19:02 BST (UK) »
And a bit of Shakespeare,am I right,?
Love alters not when it alteration finds?

It was just an exercise in a writing class I attended for a while,plagiarising other writers.
We had just a few minutes to produce something but I did not know Binyon
only aware of those lines from The Armistice day readings along with the Kohima epitaph.
I must look him up.Cheerio. Viktoria.

not know zBinyon