Rememberance

I enjoy the history of WWI, I like finding out about local men who fought and sadly many of them paid the ultimate price.  The war memorial in our little village actually sits almost exactly a mile outside the village itself, it is simple and beautiful  but it seems to me it is almost forgotten except for the service of remembrance each year.  I sometimes walk out and sit there, reading the names of my ancestors and the other men from our village that fell.  Sadly now it is not easy to photograph, the simple beauty spoiled by horrid modern black resin benches, I am not sure who thought these monstrosities were a good idea but they detract from the simplicity of that hallowed place.

In the neighbouring village the war memorial is again simple, striking and right in the heart of the village, fitting that it is seen every day.  It is always well tended, litter free and respected and every Easter a wreath or daffodils is placed.  It looks softer with the yellows, bright not like the stark blood red of the poppy wreaths of remembrance.

It always reminds me of a line that stuck in my head from reading war poetry from the Great War "Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget." the final lines of a poem written by Siegfried Sassoon called Aftermath and it seems fitting today