Remembrance
|November 11, 2013|
Mary Russell is posting Tweets all day for Remembrance Day, from the diary of Gabriel Hughenfort. Russell, Holmes, and Mrs Hudson paused for silence at 11 am their time, in Sussex. Follow her here.
(War photographer Helen Johns Kirtland in the trenches.)
Posted in Mary Russell
Gabriel’s diary, and his story, always makes me sad. No many how many times I read or listen to “Justice Hall,” I always hope that this time, Gabriel will have a happy ending…
For the past 15 years (at least) I’ve been responsible for assembling the dwindling numbers of the Village branch of the Royal British Legion, together with Scouts, Cubs, Beavers, Guides, Brownies and Rainbows; and marching them to the parish church in good order and “bags of swank”, where we conduct our Act of Remembrance. For 2013, I had a year-off “for good behaviour” … as my son and I had the 50th anniversary of our club (it’s called IPMS – International Plastic Modellers Society – you have a US branch as well) to attend at the other end of the country.
As 1100 approached, the Last Post was sounded and the club Padre recited the Exhortation and some 2,000 people across two big display halls stood in silence for two whole minutes. The atmosphere was electric. Reveille signalled the end of the silence and the buzz of conversation began again.
While the casualty lists of WW1 and WW2 were longer, there was no “instant news” then … Today the casualty lists are shorter but the news of death or wounding is brought to Loved Ones within hours of the event. Now, as then, each casualty is someone’s son or daughter, father or mother, uncle or aunt, and always one too many. We wear Poppies for Remembrance …
… To echo the words of the Kohima Epitaph: “When you go home, tell them of us and say ‘For your tomorrow, we gave our today’.”