The yearly cycle brings us to Remembrance Sunday. Some comment on the increasing irrelevance to a generation so far removed from the two enormous conflicts of previous century. Personally, I find it all immensely moving; the boys, too, seem to find a mood of genuine solemnity within them. And this Sunday, for the first time, we had girls too - singing Mark Blatchley's 'Fall the Fallen'. Even Rodney commented on how moving it all was.
Sixteen thousand men and women have been killed in battle since the last shot was fired at the end of World War Two. If that doesn't make the whole thing relevant, I don't know what does. And let us not forget the words of Eric Blair, either...
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Pity his son Tony didn't take more notice, really.
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14 comments:
Remembrance Sunday will never be irrelevant. I've been talking to the kids about it (after they'd seen poppies everywhere) and we have just observed the silence, and watched the parade in London via the BBC.
It's important to remember.
x
I could not agree more.
I completely agree. And just because I don't necessarily agree with the motivation to enter into a particular war (at least 2 spring immediately to mind) doesn't mean I don't think RS isn't relevant to those actually doing the dirty work.
btw I've completed the task you assigned me!
I hadn't heard that Eric Blair quote before. It's very very appropriate.
As I stood at a remembrence service today with more people there than I can ever remember, it struck me that perhaps Remembrance has become more relevant now than it has been for a long time.
Thoughtful stuff, Can. How come you could blog about it so quickly afterwards?
Thoughtful. Relevant. Appropriate.
Thank you Mr CB1.
Thoughtful stuff, indeed. I'm glad people back in Blighty still have respect for something. (I was going to make a joke about Lionel Blair, but it seems like a crass idea now).
And the 16,000 is just from here. I've always found it moving - as I do the thought that the last Post is still sounded every night at the Menin Gate.
Sod the Japs and the Germans though.
Oh, come on now, Teeth. Forgive and forget, and all that. And as for my timing, Dotterel, have you seen the absurd figures Blogger stamps on my posts. As if I'd be blogging at three in the bloody morning!
Thank you for the correction... I cut and pasted from what I thought was a reputable site and as I read it, I did think there was something not quite right...
It's one of those few ceremonies we allow ourselves now where we can commemorate the generations that have made us. Nowadays we seem to want live in a world where there was nothing before and nothing to which we owe allegiance - except the last episode of East Enders or Big Brother. You're right. This is crucial. If we jettison it, we lose our soul.
OF
I suppose it loses a little solemnity as the WWI and WWII generations die off alas, but I still value it as an occasion and see it as a failure of education if the young do not realise what it is about, rather than a failure of Remembrance Day. And the bombardment of war history programmes at this time of year is surely enough to give them a clue!
I also value seeing the Royal Family at their most sincere - this day is obviously a genuinely big deal to them and rightly so.
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