Saturday (tomorrow) is Armistice Day and Sunday is Remembrance Day. In the Village Hall a scale model of the Cenotaph has been set up, with an exhibition of medals, photographs and letters. The plan on Sunday is for the service to begin at the War Memorial, then process to the church for the usual Morning Service, and then finish with coffee in the Village Hall.
There are three War Memorials in the village – a gothic pillar on the edge of the green, a marble monument to the fallen in the north aisle of the church, and a framed list (elaborate calligraphy including gold initial letters) of all who served. Looking at the list of casualties, there are about fifty names from the First World War (including many family groups), and five from the Second.
The many names from the 1914-18 conflict reflects the large numbers of manual labourers who for generations had worked on the surrounding farms (the young men finished the harvest before volunteering in early October 1914, many of them never returning). The First World War had a devastating effect on the village. It was a local holocaust.
Recently an American-style “Veterans Day” has been introduced on June 27th. This is supposed to be an additional opportunity to honour the armed forces. Cynics say that the government has introduced Veterans Day with the intention of dropping Remembrance Day at some point in the future (Remembrance Day has long been criticised as “anti-European” and not politically correct).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/remembrance/history/cenotaph.shtml
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