Soldier's Gate

It’s Remembrance Day in the UK and across much of the world. It was at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month that World War I was brought to an end in 1918. It’s a day we remember the people who died in that war and all the others that have happened since. Most of the main observances were held last Sunday but the country stopped for two minutes quiet reflection at 11am this morning.

I was listening to the radio this morning and one of the contributors made an interesting point. In spite of what is happening in a few parts of the world, the vast majority of the planet is at peace and in the last 70 years, since the conclusion of World War II, the number of people who have died in wars has fallen to an all time low. He called the last 70 years ‘The Great Peace.’ The Great Peace has been marked by an unprecedented flowering of culture and art, science and technology supported by an explosion of wealth that is spreading across the world. Might be a bit rosy a view, but a lot of what he said made sense. We just need a few people to come and join the party I suppose?

This, of course, is the Soldier’s Gate in Victoria Station in Manchester. I’ve blipped about it before I think. It was the entrance that thousands of local, young men and boys left the city during World War I, many never to return from the killing fields of northern France and Belgium. The cast iron gate with bullet holes that mark the positions of war cemeteries in those two countries, has been covered by a piece of plate glass marking the names of the cemeteries and the number of British men buried there. I started to do a rough estimate but stopped when it was getting into the hundreds of thousands. It’s decorated with poppies, the flower we use to focus our thought at the sad time of year.