Deacon John Writes:
On Saturday November 2nd, All Souls Day, after Mass, I blessed the Memorial Garden at St George’s and all the graves in the garden. I then went to Willingdon cemetery and blessed the graves there. A good gathering came to the Church garden and a much smaller group accompanied me to the cemetery. Thank you to all who supported me and a special thank you to Anne who transported me.
Last Sunday I preached about Remembrance Sunday and included two poems. I found it quite emotional reading these poems. I was in Plymouth when war broke out. My father was an air raid warden during the war. I remember the air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden and I remember having to move from one shelter to another several times one night as bombs fell around us. In the chaos of movement I got separated from my parents but was safely returned home the following day. I was 5/6 at the time. My father was a schoolteacher and his school was evacuated in its entirety to Penzance for the rest of the war. The poems I referred to were:
Laurence Binyon’s poem ‘For the fallen’:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
John McCrae wrote the poem “In Flanders Fields” In the spring of 1915, shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, after seeing poppies growing in battle-scarred fields.
In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow Loved and were loved, and now we lie Between the crosses, row on row In Flanders’ fields.
That mark our place: and in the sky Take up our quarrel with the foe;
The larks, still bravely singing, fly To you from failing hands we throw
Scarce heard amid the guns below. The torch; be yours to hold it high, We are the dead. Short days ago If ye break faith with us who die
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders’ Fields.
That poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of Remembrance.
