100 Years!

Today I wanted to briefly say a few words about Remembrance Sunday. Yesterday was a busy day for me and I was unable to write an entry as planned. Now the day has past, I thought it appropriate to offer my views on this very British occasion, significant to everyone who understands the importance of history, in the building of our great nation!

Remembrance Day or Poppy Day as I like call it,  takes place on the Sunday nearest to 11 November each year, the date an armistice was signed ending World War I. This was also my late Nanny Poppy's Birthday, so is particularly poignant for my family and I. On this day all of us are encouraged to commemorate the tremendous sacrifices made by ordinary men and women, called upon to carry out their duty, protecting their homeland from dictatorship and aggression. At 11am we remember all those who fought in the name of peace, affording us the freedoms we enjoy in the modern age. Ever since I was a small child, I have observed the one minute silence on this day of reflection and contemplation. I understand the importance of honouring lives lost, so I can blog and write my words, voicing an opinion and speaking as I do. I know more than most about the Great War, having spent the last few years of schooling learning about this dreadful schism, undertaking a trip to the battlefields in Belgium and France, seeing first hand where so many brave soldiers lost their lives. I have never forgotten that journey, just as no one should forget the bravery of all those who took part in the Great War (1914-1918) and every other subsequent conflict!

Portsmouth remembered the fallen of World War I in their own unique way, placing plaques in each street where they lived over a hundred years ago. This was a fitting tribute from a City whose military credentials are firmly rooted in its history. Portsmouth, like many towns and cities across Britain lost many of its own, in a conflict fought in and around the battlefields of Belgium and France.

Every person knew someone who had died, whole neighbourhoods were decimated, condemning many families to a life left empty without their kinfolk. Fathers, the breadwinners and head of the family, their sons, Uncles and Cousins, all wiped out in the war to end all wars. If you were lucky enough to survive the onslaught in the trenches, then you may well have suffered physical injury, many men enduring painful burns and scars, the loss of limbs and sight and other disfiguring wounds. Many more experienced mental breakdowns, Post Traumatic Stress and depression, little understood at the time.

This was the first truly international conflict with nations across the World doing their bit for King and Empire, also agonising like their British counterparts. While young men were sent to their deaths, often ordered over the trenches where they served, into battle against German bombardment, knowing they wouldn't return, Britain tried to carry on as normally as possible. As news filtered through to an embattled homeland, still more men left British shores to fight hundreds of miles away. The First World War lasted four years, the costs were high. 700,000 British were killed; world wide 20 million lost their lives and a further 20 million were injured; a high price indeed!

Yesterday I stood in the kitchen of my Aunts house, observing the one minute silence at 11am. Wearing a red poppy, just like many millions of other people, I wanted to once again show my respect on Remembrance Sunday. The 100th anniversary commemorating the end of World War I, is an important date, after all as time moves on it wont be too long before the few who are left, who actually remember a loved one who died in the conflict, also pass away. Memories do fade and whether or not we continue to remember the dead as we do today, will be a matter for a different generation. For now we should all respect the memories of those who fought and died for us, the ones who didn't come home, the ones whose bravery is without question and the souls of everyone, wherever they are from, who continue to fight to protect our shores from the tyranny of repression and the futility of war.