Remembrance 2018

[nivrip]

I like the Remembrance activities at the Tower of London this year with the lighted torches every night for the coming week.

I think that they are very moving and find it hard to think that it is already four years since the fantastic display of poppies in the Tower moat to commemorate the beginning of the war.

It's also nice that many small communities, like my own, are making a great effort to remember the dead of WW1. At our local memorial we have a lovely display which just about stops all the passing traffic as it's just by the roadside.

This has been created by some local volunteers.

And at our tiny railway station we have displays by the local knitting community...……..

Our local village, Nunthorpe, is quite small and 100 years ago was tiny but still lost 16 residents in the action. It is very thought provoking.

 

[Ian]

There are lots of displays in our town too - knitted poppies dotted around, plus flower displays near any public area. There are still something like 15,000 people in the UK that were alive during WWI (albeit very young) and plenty others living with the long term consequences.

We saw the "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red" poppies at the Tower of London a while ago and it really put into perspective to see how many lives were lost during the conflict. I thought it was a really fantastic way to help people realise the human cost of the conflict.

 

[Becky]

We saw the poppies at the Imperial War Museum North the other day, they are so striking.

There is a memorial in our town for a street (which is no longer there) where over 160 men from just 60 houses signed up to fight during WW1. 29 gave their lives and 20 died from injuries later, and it's been called the "bravest little street in England".

I'm so glad that I've been lucky enough not to live through such an awful time.

 

[nivrip]

This recent map shows the horror of the war. It's of North Shields and shows just how many households had soldiers killed. Just about every street and some streets with just about every house.

Frightening.

 

[Becky]

That must have been awful There's a related video here that gives more detail: