Armistice Day 2020

-
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Westminster Abbey - image ©National Army Museum


Armistice Day passes once again, this year marking the centenary of the interment of an unknown combatant in a tomb in Westminster Abbey, in memory of those who lie, also unknown in name, in the war graves of France and Belgium.

This year's Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day commemorations were understandably severely abbreviated due to Covid, but nevertheless undiminished. Looking back at my reflection on our war graves visit to Ypres in 1983, it's so often the small, unremarked detail that illuminates and allows us some attenuated comprehension of, the unimaginably awful.

Today's muted remembrance somehow enhances our focus on the humanity underlying war, in the same way that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or The Railway Dugouts Burial Ground at Ypres affords us the clarity of the particular: the Universe in a grain of sand, reminding us that death is always personal, even in war. 

Comments

  1. Phil.11 November 2020 at 17:56

    Very well said Kel.

    There is something strangely powerful and very intense about standing still and being silent whilst in public. It just hits home in a way that the music, marching bands, flypasts, speeches and even prayer doesn’t get close to.

    I was at home this morning, but last year I remember very clearly that I was in a supermarket. It was very impactful and touching to see normal people going about their everyday business just stop, stand still, lower their heads and be silent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. sideways11 November 2020 at 19:26

    I think the stripped-back nature of it all this year was exemplified best by both the Simon Armitage poem, Bed; and the war-widow's piece read by Cerys Matthews at today's commemoration. I was moved to tears by the latter particularly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Steve14 November 2020 at 12:24

    Have to agree with Phil about experiencing the silence in public. Last year Margaret & I were in Stratford-upon-Avon visiting the RSC. Sunday was Remembrance Day so we joined the locals at their memorial. There were about 300 people and the silence was incredibly moving. When the Last Post was sounded I'm sure there were many a tear shed. But for this years pandemic I am certain that we would have joined a similar tribute again this year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. sideways14 November 2020 at 17:56

      It's been a strange but weirdly not an entirely unrewarding year. I think an awful lot of people have learned some pretty fundamental life-lessons: reflection on mortality being one of them.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more