Remembering 1

This week each house in our village received a booklet giving details of all the men listed on our war memorial from World war 1. It has been produced by our parish council and they have done an excellent job.

The names are read out each year and we know little or nothing about them but here we have been given details of where they lived, together with a map of the village in 1914 and details of where they fought and ultimately died.

An exhibition was also held today, appropriately in the village Memorial Hall, with additional information. It included pictures of the village in 1914 and the same places today.

The information on the men was the same as in the booklet but it also showed a map of where they served and a picture of the memorials where they are named. Some returned and died subsequently of their wounds and therefore have war graves locally, but some are commemorated at Thiepval or other memorials in France or on the Menin gate in Belgium as having no known grave. There were even some from our small village in Italy and the Dardanelles, Gallipoli.

There were 21 in all.

It was good to see information on those who returned too and whether or not they stayed in the village plus the 1911 census and detailed maps of Harden at the time. Good to look up who used to live in your house, and how many! (if it is one of those still standing)

A really good effort by our a Parish council and I feel it is important that these men are still being thought of and remembered today.

Would that there would be no more wars.