REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY
‘Peace is not simply the absence of war’
It is fragile. It needs work and constant tending. And the agony of our School’s contribution, and of the contribution made by so many was poignantly and thoughtfully brought home to us by Padre Cook’s reflections. It had never occurred to me before that the soldiers of the Second World War would have struggled past the huge French graveyards of those from the First, and that some of those soldiers may even have been walking the same ground they trod as youngsters. The war to end all wars was nothing like, and the naivety of the generation that hoped as much should not be repeated, though the hope for peace is still our best hope.
This year’s service was also marked by the display of a remarkable Standard laid between those of our School’s at the altar: OWs Chris, Lucy and Anna Silovsky’s great grandfather, their mother Lucy’s grandfather, Lt Col LS Henshall DSO and Bar was one of the tank pioneers in WW1 and specifically at the first battle ever fought with tanks, at Cambrai, which started on 20 November 1917 (almost 100 years to the day). He it was who a few days prior bought up some of the last silk in the area to stitch together standards to be borne by his ‘B’ Battalion of the Regiment (it was so new it had no history and no traditions): brown (for the mud), red (for the blood) and green (for the future fields). And here was one of those standards, wearied by conflict and a century, fragile like the peace we must fight to maintain, but still with us and recognisable in its faded delicacy.
We honoured the memories of so many fallen (every family will have its own history), and we thought of the lives affected. With this tangible reminder of the First War to focus our reflections, and with Ianthe Hill’s trumpet call and the laying of wreaths (the salute given by Gabby Zins, representing this generation’s CCF, to those honoured at the Memorial quite the most potent symbol of our shared responsibility), we remembered.
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.
