WW1 COMMEMORATIONS

[macwil]

Just seen this report on WW1 commemorations in Portsmouth.
WW1-soldiers-remembered-on-the-streets-where-they-lived.

A brilliant idea! I hope they are permanent.
It should be adopted throughout the land.

[dowdstree]

That is a brilliant idea.

Just read in the Edinburgh Evening News today that 3 Edinburgh lads who won the VC have had flagstones laid in their honour -

Sapper Adam Archibald - Shaw Street
Cpl James McPhie - West Richmond Street
Lt David Stewart McGregor - outside George Heriot's School.

I sincerely hope that other towns and cities in the UK are doing something as a permanent memorial to all their brave boys.


Dorrie

[Viktoria]

What a great pity that the original Rolls of Honour which were on every street corner,a paper sheet, suitably decorated  and with names of any serviceman from that street who had been killed, died of wounds or with no known grave.
They were in locked frames ,glass fronted .
Over the years they did suffer from weather etc ,but the final indignity was when the little terraced homes were ripped down in the “slum clearances”of the 1950’s and early 60’s which ruined the neighbourly cohesion and broke up communities.
The rolls of Honour had gone.
It was a catastrophic move ,devoid of any attempt to keep neighbours together.
There was nowhere to place the rolls and although the men listed had lived in homes on that ground, their families had been moved miles away.
So many problems can be traced back to those clearances.
But that is another matter..
 Viktoria

[Scribble1952]

Full List of beaches named for WW1 'Pages of the Sea'
Commemoration
Online at
Centenarynews.com

[Roobarb]

My local beach is one of those taking part in Pages of the Sea. I've checked the tide times. 

If I watch many more TV programmes about WW1 I'm going to end up as a soggy mess, will need to be wrung out. 

[Viktoria]

Heard from someone the other day,she related this:-
On a Battlefield tour,they had visited some Military cemeteries ,all of which are kept so beautifully.
Back on the coach a woman said “ Well I have to say ,they died in a lovely place,so neat and tidy .”
I think the coach exploded,how could anyone of more than middle age not
have any idea of the conditions those men lived and died in?
It beggars belief, how had it escaped them?
More to the point,was it all for nothing ?
It is heartbreaking.
Viktoria.

[Viktoria]

I have just remembered ,yesterday was the 100th anniversary of Wilfred Owen’s death.
My mother died 61 years ago tomorrow ,and I was thinking of that ,and only when I went to look something up amongst my WWI books did it come to me
that it was his anniversary.

The letter sending the news to his parents did not get to them until the 11th November.
.
They lived on Monksmoor Road ,Shrewsbury.
The bells were ringing to mark the end of WWI in Shrewsbury Abbey ,just down the road from the house,when the letter arrived.

How sad,such a little time before the end .
One letter in the little tribute in church ,from a lad to his parents says he was “in the pink ,don’t worry about me but send some socks please Mum.
I am proud that I went voluntary before I was fetched(sic)..”
The letter was dated the 3rdJuly,he was killed on 5th July,that letter also took a week to reach his parents.
 Viktoria.
.

Viktoria.