This morning I went for a walk.
I left the house at about half past ten, and I walked towards the station.
I walked past the Primary School with six and seven year olds shouting and jumping and playing in the playground.
And I continued down the road past the smallholdings until I came to the level crossing and gingerly made my way across the rails because there is no footbridge.
A hundred metres later I came to my destination.
The War Memorial for the villages of East Calder and Kirknewton.
No two Memorials are the same. Contrary to what we might expect today, they were not built by the state, but by public subscription. Each community raised their own money and commissioned their own design. They don't all bear the same dates. Some say 1914-1918, some 1914-1919 and some 1914-1921.
Although the date we now remember is 11.11.1918 - the date the Armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany - many memorials such as this one bear the dates 1914-1919 because it wasn't until the following summer that the Treaty of Versailles was signed. A few memorials have 1921, the first American Armistice Day.
The silence we now associate with Armistice Day began in 1919, following a letter to the London Evening News, although there are reports that on the evening of the first anniversary there were parties and dancing in the streets to celebrate peace.
In 1920 King George V, after initially rejecting the concept, approved the establishment of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey. The description of how this was done can be seen here - do read it. The flag which covered his coffin hangs in the Abbey.
In 1921, a similar ceremony took place on the 11th of November at Arlington Cemetery in Washington.
So at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 2009, I stood in front of the memorial and read each name.
And when the two minutes was over I jumped over the low wall (because the gate was locked) and I did the same thing again.
There was no-one else there.
It is notable that on the first list, names are given according to rank, then alphabet, but on the second, it is purely alphabetical.
When the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was established by Royal Charter in 1917, there was dissent about a number of aspects of the establishment of War Cemeteries. However principles were laid down then and are still adhered to today.
Names should be placed on the headstone or memorial where they are known.
Headstones should be permanent.
Headstones should be uniform.
All very logical. However the Commission also decreed two further principles.
The first was that there was to be no repatriation of bodies. There was outcry about this because families wanted to bring their sons (and daughters) home, but in reality only the wealthy would have been able to afford it which would have created inequality, something the CWGC were staunchly against.
The second was that there should be no distinction made on account of military or civil rank, race or creed. This was remarkable for the time, but as I saw on the plaques, by the 1939-45 war, it was accepted practice. Again there was dissent, the concept of laying officers and "men" side by side was alien in a class ridden Britain, but the Commission insisted on it.
Memorials take all forms, some are grand with extensive stonework and carving and others are very simple, little more than cairns of stones. Some communities have no physical memorial because it was left to each village to decide for themselves, and they decided to pay for a District Nurse for their community instead.
Among the expected poppy wreaths from Girl Guides, Scouts and Boys Brigade, I found this.
It reads
REMEMBERING OUR UNCLE
PRIVATE JAMES RENWICK
7th CAMERON HIGHLANDERS
Missing 20th August 1917
Aged 20 years
AND ALL THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES
FOR OUR FREEDOM
You can see his name on the plaque. My sons are now 18 and 20.
And as I walked back home past the now silent school I realised that since the school was built just over a hundred years ago it is quite possible that he would have been one of the little boys running around in that playground with his friends in the early years of the last century. The same playground my own children played in when they were small.
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