Remembrance Sunday

At the eleventh hour on the 11th November 1918 the guns in Europe fell silent - one hundred years later we still commemorate the fallen of the two world wars and later conflicts. This morning we went to school to participate in the Remembrance Sunday service, and as always it was a poignant and emotional service. Being the hundred year anniversary many people attended and the chapel was full to bursting. At 11 o' clock Thomas played the Last Post. It always gives me goose bumps and he played it beautifully today - this being the eighth year in a row that he has played it. I am sure next year when he is at university he will find a pub some where to play it again, as I think he will miss playing it!

We always sing my favourite hymns at this service, 'O God, our help in ages past' and 'I vow to thee my country'. For the past five years throughout the year they have been reading out the names of the school boys who had lost their lives in the world wars and today the last ten names were read out. You have to blink back the tears when you hear the names of 20 year olds who had only left school a couple of years before and then were killed in the war.

After the service we had a pub lunch and then Luke left by train to go back to Durham. I spent the afternoon finishing the editing of my photos, a link here if you are interested. We are now going back to school as this evening there is a choral concert, Thomas is singing in the Chapel Choir and in a select vocal group. This will be the last vocal concert we ever see him in at school so it could not be missed.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row.
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.