Remembrance

In the town where I live (and I'm sure elsewhere it's the same) there are very many volunteers standing about in all weathers with boxes of poppies. I try to thank each one I see for giving their time, and often enduring the cold and rain, to collect money for the RBL. It occurred to me today that we most likely have one or two Gransnetters who do this, so, if you are one, thank you. My daughter received a lot of legal advice from the RBL when her husband's inquest was held and it made a difficult situation much easier than it otherwise would have been.

Yes,got ours
Where do you find poppy pics,I must have every symbol you can think of,but no poppy

Scroll down the page to the emoticons Marmark.

Oh,yes,I'm dozy,poppy

Well,that didn't work
How do you put one in reply

The Blackadder clip is one of the most moving pieces of television I know and some people say it taught them more about WWI than all their History lessons!
Do click the link if you haven't done so already.

I did click on the link Daphne - made me cry.

Marmark - you put square brackets round the word poppy.

DB yes it was brilliant.

It's just been on the freeview Yesterday channel

It is a national holiday here, only the EU do not get it as the Germans vetoed it.
All shops etc are closed same as on Sundays. In some of the smaller towns in Flanders even the traffic lights go to red for 2 minutes on the 11th.
Children do special projects at school in the weeks running up to it, even DGS at 4 did a project in his maternalle class.
Both WW1 and 2 will never be forgotten here, you just have to drive a short distance out of the city to pass beautifully kept War Graves cemeteries.
The most poignant for me was the German cemetery which holds 40,000 graves, when you enter through a gate they are as far as the eye can see. Back to back graves and the ages are shocking, a 13 year old next to a 73 year old.
The cemetery is on the outskirts of the town of Lommel if anyone ever does the tours.

My GC (cubs, scouts, army cadets) are all involved in Remembrance ceremonies. Last year two of them (different families) were flag bearers. Sixty or so years ago, I carried a flag for the guides, along the windy prom to the war memorial. I'm glad they are following in my footsteps - if not geographically.

I can't go tomorrow but DH will be there as usual.
For once, I shall be able to watch the service on the television.

Thank you for the link DB

Many who did not die in WW1 suffered for many years afterwards as a result of poison gas.

the atrocities committed here by German soldiers in WW1 have never been forgotten, two of SOs' great Aunts were raped one 4 times.
They susequently never married and he remembers them as being very sad old ladies.
Most families do not dicuss it publicly, Belguim is a very private country, there is a lot of very sad history here.
Not a lot of love lost for the Americans either, the Allied bombing near the end of WW2 was really destrucive, the whole end of the street we live near was bombed as the Americans thought the large avenues were the airport, which is in the opposite direction and not at all in the city, even now.
They also bombed the University library in Leuven, were forced to re-build it and in place of one of the historic statues on a corner, placed an American Eagle.
The headquarters of the Gestapo is about 150 metres from here, there is no plaque or anything but everyone knows where it was.

I once went with our German twin town host to visit the grave of the father he never knew. He had to grow up knowing that his father had died an inglorious death fighting for the wrong reasons. We both cried. I am so grateful that my own father survived being shot down and proud that he made many twin town friends welcome over the years.

Nice post brOadwater

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

The Wilfred Owen poem I have just posted is what the means to me! War is not glorious.

Last Post by Carol Ann Duffy.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If poetry could tell it backwards, true,
begin
 that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud ...
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
 run upwards from the slime into its wounds;

see lines and lines of British boys rewind
 back to their trenches,
kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers

not entering the story now
 to die and die and die.

Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori.

You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
 like all your mates do too -

Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -
 and light a cigarette.

There's coffee in the square, 
warm French bread

and all those thousands dead
 are shaking dried mud from their hair

and queuing up for home.
Freshly alive,
 a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released 
from History;
the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,
 your several million lives still possible

and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.

You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.

If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
 then it would.

Thanks for that one GD

I'm sure Wilfred Owen would have approved.

For some strange reason, someone near here is setting off fireworks!