Seventy years ago today ...

(Prime Minister Winston S Churchill's speech to the House of Commons on 20th August 1940 was not recorded at the time, but re-recorded by him some years later - after the end of the conflict, I believe)

Apart from the dramatic content of this speech, what is so wonderful about it and so many others of his speeches is the sheer quality and elegance of most of his writing; a veritable masterclass in the use of the modern English language.

In Flanders Fields ...

Today is the 91st anniversary of the Armistice which took effect on the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918 and which brought to an end four years of bloody conflict in what has become known to history as the 'Great War', or 'World War I' - or more optimistically the 'war to end all wars'. Unfortunately the last was a forlorn hope, for just over twenty years later another 'world war' came along to cause yet more deaths, bloodshed and destruction, not to mention the expenditure of further huge amounts of wealth. Whilst we have so far been spared another 'world war', there have been many regional conflicts in the years since, as well as numerous civil wars - all of which have added to the score of human suffering. Perhaps one day wars will exist only in the history books, rather than being the daily reality for far too many people around the world.

'In Flanders Fields' written by Lt Col John McCrae
plus
'For the Fallen' (excerpt) written by Laurence Binyon



In respectful memory of all those killed so needlessly in war then
- and tragically those whose lives are lost in war to this day.

Lest we forget ...

("For the Fallen", Verse 4, by Lawrence Binyon) They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. Rest in Peace

- and British casualties of war are still occurring today, with all the personal tragedies that result:

Sixty-five years ago today ...

On the morning of 6th june 1944, the allies began the process of liberating Europe by landing troops on the Normandy coast of France by sea and from the air. Later that day the French government in exile in London (the 'Free French') announced to compatriots in France through its regular broadcasts courtesy of the BBC that bridge-heads had been established on French soil earlier in the day and that the liberation of France was underway. In the recording embedded below, General de Gaulle addresses the French people:

The banal reality of battle

I have, very fortunately, no personal notion of what it might be like to be in the midst of an armed conflict - few of us do. However here is is a short segment from the writings of someone who very definitely did:

... from "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" (Chapter 4 - 'Battle') - by Siegried Sassoon The Germans had left a lot of shovels, but we were making no use of them. Two tough-looking privates were disputing the ownership of a pair of field-glasses, so I pulled out my pistol and urged them, with ferocious objurations, to chuck all that fooling and dig. I seemed to be getting pretty handy with my pistol, I thought, for the conditions in Quadrangle Trench were giving me a sort of angry impetus. In some places it was only a foot deep, and already men were lying wounded and killed by sniping. There were high-booted German bodies, too, and in the blear beginning of daylight they seemed as much the victims of a catastrophe as the men who had attacked them. As I stepped over one of the Germans an impulse made me lift him up from the miserable ditch. Propped against the bank, his blond face was undisfigured, except by the mud which I wiped from his eyes and mouth with my coat sleeve. He'd evidently been killed while digging, for his tunic was knotted loosely around his shoulders. He didn't look to be more than eighteen. Hoisting him a little higher, I thought what a gentle face he had, and remembered that this was the first time I'd ever touched one of our enemies with my hands. Perhaps I had some dim sense of the futility which had put an end to this good-looking youth. Anyhow I hadn't expected the Battle of the Somme to be quite like this ...

All this may have happened just over ninety years ago, but similar actions continue to this day. Humanity still has a great deal of growing up to do before such actions will no longer be thought (and indeed often be) necessary.

"The Germans suffered the same as we did."

The words of the last known surviving British soldier to have fought in the trenches of World War I, Harry Patch (109), during a visit to the trenches where he fought 90 years ago.

What do any of us 'youngsters' know, really know, of the horrors that people like Mr Patch suffered? Not much, I suspect. At any rate I salute this fine old gent. Read more about him here.