Tag archives for Rememberthem
A Hundred Years Before [Poetry]
War Memorial in Boubers-sur-Canche, France (photo: James Kemp) I wrote the first draft of A Hundred Years Before after visiting a cemetery in France in Boubers sur Canche near Arras. It wasn't one of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries, it was an ordinary French commune cemetery, but it had over a hundred graves of French soldiers killed in action during August 1914. On reflection I realised that British soldiers, and before that the constituent nations fielded soldiers in the same place as the legions of WW1 we're currently remembering publicly. Let's not forget their forebears. A Hundred Years Before Here I stand now, near the border of France and Belgium. The cockpit of Europe. A hundred years before, others stood here. British soldiers who fought, and died, with the French against the Germans on this soil. Le sale Boche.…
7/7 London Bombings Remembered Ten years on
Ten years ago the last successful terrorist spectacular was about to happen in London. 52 people were murdered by suicide bombers in one of the worst terrorist attacks in mainland Britain. Thankfully the repeat attempt a fortnight later didn't work, nor did the attempted car bombing at Glasgow airport. All the other attempts in the UK have been much lower key and, barring the murder of Drummer Rigby, not successful. That said British people have been killed overseas, last week's tragedy in Tunisia being a terrible example of the willingness of extremists to go for soft targets. English: A typical "new-look" London fire engine. The new type of fire appliance used by London Fire Brigade is smaller than it's predecessors to enable it to negotiate heavy London traffic more easily. With "FIRE" in mirror writing ("ERIF"). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The…
Remembrance Challenge
We took our cubs to the local war memorial in the Church near the Scout Hall as part of our own remembrance challenge. Before we went the cubs each made a wreath of poppies and wrote a message on it. Each boy did his own personal wreath. We then walked to the Church where we spoke about why we remember, and how different things were in 1914. South Merstham wasn't as big then as it is now, the new houses were mostly built in the 1950s. In the 1911 census there were around 600 men in the locality. About 150 of whom signed up in August 1914. (I'm guessing some would be unfit, others in jobs that couldn't just go off to war and some others not that keen). @N04/15767315095/ Remembrance Challenge The remembrance challenge was to find out as much as…