Remembrance Sunday
Today, 10th November 2019, is Remembrance Sunday: tomorrow is Armistice Day, the 101st anniversary of the day the guns fell silent at the end of the First World War.
I will not be making any party political posts today, or tomorrow until after 11 am. To the best of my knowledge none of the political parties are campaigning today.
Instead I will be attending various commemorative events covering areas of my county division. Apologies for the fact that I will not be able to get to them all but I cannot be in two places at once.
Today is a day for remembering all those who have lost their lives in war, particularly those who fought to defend our country but also all the innocent civilians and victims or war and atrocity.
We remember the cost of war today as we have done ever since the end of the massive conflict which is usually known today by the name I gave it above, the First World War, but was known to those who lived through it as The Great War.
Many of those who died in that war have their names recorded on a war memorial. But in the case of the town my grandfather came from, a Lancashire town called Darwen which is just south of Blackburn, that community lost so many people that this is the inscription the citizens of the town placed on the memorial to their dead which was put up shortly after the end of the war. This war memorial is in Bold Venture Park, a few minutes' walk from my grandfather's house.
Yes, more than twelve hundred dead from one small town. It does not bear thinking about. Darwen came off particularly badly but every town and village in Britain bore its share of pain and loss.
My grandfather's younger brother Robert - Private Robert Whiteside, 18th Battalion the Lancashire Fusiliers - is one of those whose names would have been on that memorial had there not been too many names to fit on it. He was killed at the age of eighteen, just six weeks before the end of the war.
Here is a picture of the memorial itself. A beautiful place yet this memorial commemorates such a vast tragedy.
The sacrifice of all those who gave their lives for this country should never be forgotten. Nor should we forget any of the others who have died in war.
Rest in Peace.
I will not be making any party political posts today, or tomorrow until after 11 am. To the best of my knowledge none of the political parties are campaigning today.
Instead I will be attending various commemorative events covering areas of my county division. Apologies for the fact that I will not be able to get to them all but I cannot be in two places at once.
Today is a day for remembering all those who have lost their lives in war, particularly those who fought to defend our country but also all the innocent civilians and victims or war and atrocity.
We remember the cost of war today as we have done ever since the end of the massive conflict which is usually known today by the name I gave it above, the First World War, but was known to those who lived through it as The Great War.
Many of those who died in that war have their names recorded on a war memorial. But in the case of the town my grandfather came from, a Lancashire town called Darwen which is just south of Blackburn, that community lost so many people that this is the inscription the citizens of the town placed on the memorial to their dead which was put up shortly after the end of the war. This war memorial is in Bold Venture Park, a few minutes' walk from my grandfather's house.
Yes, more than twelve hundred dead from one small town. It does not bear thinking about. Darwen came off particularly badly but every town and village in Britain bore its share of pain and loss.
My grandfather's younger brother Robert - Private Robert Whiteside, 18th Battalion the Lancashire Fusiliers - is one of those whose names would have been on that memorial had there not been too many names to fit on it. He was killed at the age of eighteen, just six weeks before the end of the war.
Here is a picture of the memorial itself. A beautiful place yet this memorial commemorates such a vast tragedy.
The sacrifice of all those who gave their lives for this country should never be forgotten. Nor should we forget any of the others who have died in war.
Rest in Peace.
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