Remembrance Day

Remembrance Sunday, which fell on November 14th this year, is a significant day here; actually, it is more like Remembrance weeks. It commemorates the end of WWI, which ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Thus, the two-minute silence is at precisely eleven o'clock. People start wearing a poppy on the lapel in early November, the Flanders poppy being the official emblem. The purpose of the Day is to spend time remembering those British soldiers who have died in the two World Wars and, now, in the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. It is very different from the Memorial Day picnic we have, or even Veteran's Day. It is so different that I feel compelled to try to communicate it to whomever is interested to listen.

My own participation began with three rehearsals for the Festival of Remembrance at Albert Hall, which took place on Saturday, November 13.


















Albert Hall is a giant rotunda, and the performance space is the floorspace in the middle, like the hub of a giant wheel, and the regiments all enter down the aisles which are like the spokes -- except for the choir and band, which are on the side of the hub. I was one of four people from our church in Lane End who joined a chorus of 150 to sing for Saturday's concert. Our final rehearsal began at the Hall at 8:30 in the morning. We saw all sorts of military bands in their street clothes, until the first of two performances that day. Bruce was at the afternoon concert, and the Queen and Royal Family were at the evening performance. I was really excited to see what sort of rigmarole would attend the Queen, and, interestingly, the answer is, not much, at least at this event. Nearly everyone in the audience wears black, as though they were at a funeral. So the Queen was as somberly dressed as anyone there.

The choir sat immediately behind the military band, and I sat behind six French horns (and now I'm partially deaf). I had a good opportunity to study their uniforms, which were scarlet with gold braid and brass buttons. Each uniform conforms to the area the soldier is from: the Welshman's uniform has leeks embroidered on the collar and epaulets, and the buttons are of a specific Welsh design and the spacing of the buttons is specific to the uniforms. Some had buttons in groups of two, some five, some four. (I do wonder why!) The Irish had shamrocks on collar and lapel, the English had a white rose.

The event was a mixture of hymns like Abide With Me and How Great Thou Art, two hundred standard bearers, a military marching band doing spectacular intricate patterns while playing, the Army Training Corps doing a death-defying acrobatic routine that had my heart in my throat, an Anglican service, and all sorts of groups marching in gorgeous uniforms, including representative family members of those who have died in the recent conflicts, mostly widows and children. Seven Battle of Britain pilots are still alive, and they marched in with the use of canes, and the Chelsea Pensioners marched in wearing their scarlet coats and tri-cornered hats. Every branch marched in with superb precision; it was a beautiful sight to see. Men in uniform...! The most spectacular headresses were on the nurses from the Gurka regiment, white linen things on their heads that looked like a pillow case that had fallen off the line and frozen in a heap. (The grim angle of war was not completely ignored, as they had interviews on a giant screen with various soldiers who had lost limbs, sight, what have you, showing them trying on prosthetic limbs and learning to walk again. )

At a certain point in the event, there are two minutes of silence, while everyone is standing, during which millions of paper poppies are released from the ceiling, in the same way that "snow" is released in the third act of La Boheme. But in this case the snow is red. The poppies landed in silence, on the heads of the Coldstream Guard with their bearskin hats, the flat white hats of the Royal Navy, on the white robes of the London Gospel Choir, on the black clothes of the representative families. It was strange to stand with four thousand people in total silence for two minutes, watching the flowers fall a tremendous height, some fast, some slowly, each seemingly at its own speed. At the end of it all, everyone turned to face the Queen, God Save the Queen was sung, the military removed their headresses and hollered "hip hip hooray" three times to Her Majesty, and that was the end.

The next day, in Lane End, a Service of Remembrance was held outside the tiny Village Hall. In this small village, on a cold Sunday morning, the road was closed off and about 150 people of all ages came, wearing black, and those that had any military background at all marched to the world war memorials on the outside of the hall. Poems were read, The Last Post was played a little fuzzily on a cornet, two minutes of silence were observed, and a wreath of poppies was placed on the memorial plaque, listing the names of those in Lane End who gave their lives in those wars. Among those standing there was a 94-year-old RAF fighter, wearing a green beret. This scene was enacted at exactly the same time in every village in England, Scotland, and Wales, and Ireland, too, I'm sure, with two minutes of silence at eleven o'clock. All then repaired to the church for a service. At the end of the service, the national anthem (God Save the Queen) was sung (both verses). In our pew, we were amazed to find that our friend, a burly retired London Fireman, was in tears, free-flowing, because, he said, "by rights, you didn't need to sing our national anthem, but you did, and that just touches me!" After the day at Royal Albert Hall, full of the best marching, playing, uniforms, trumpeting that the nation could call forth, here in our village was the homely expression of one human being's gratitude to another, for something as simple, but as abstract, as singing God Save the Queen -- both verses.

The weekend was full of this sort of moment. The falling of the poppies in silence. Our friend the fireman. The whole village standing in silence while thinking of the deliberate sacrifice of tender young men. There are so many contradictions in it all: a flower that is a sign of beauty and life and regeneration and the blood of young men being absorbed into the ground. The dark drabness of the all participants at the Albert Hall, except the brilliant colours of the military uniforms. The knowing that for these people here, the Battle of Britain saved England from invasion by Hitler, and for a couple of weeks every year, they will think about the whole thing. For these people here, defending the homeland was not just an idea. Their gratitude is palpable, even now, to those who flew the planes, tromped through the woods, sailed the ships to their likely doom. Whether the wars were foolish or not, these people here must express their feelings about their country being saved, must remember at what sacrifice. Then there is the comfortable mixture of religion, the military, the Royal Family that is so foreign to an American, where the separation of church and state is so firmly held. This whole weekend was so tasteful and thoughtful and emotional, I began to wonder about this separation. For us, Veteran's Day is a strictly military event, and so I have always found it distasteful. This is a horse of a different colour, and I found myself challenging firmly held beliefs, and pondering our differences. I'm not sure where I stand on this anymore.

If I've gone on a bit long, forgive me! In my heart, both my father and grandfather were part of all this, saving England, and I thought how I have never said thank you. So, thank you.

I thought that this sentiment -- I don't know by whom --rather sums up Remembrance Sunday: "When you go home, tell them of us, and say for your tomorrow we gave our today."