I took part in the ceremony for Remembrance Sunday in the town of Farnham, where my son's company is located. I fell in with the Old Boys from the British Legion. I was made quite welcome. We had a few "change steps" as the civilian band had a poor bass drummer that wouldn't know how to keep a pace if he stepped on it! Despite that, us old soldiers soon fell into the pace properly. Its something you never forget. Once a soldier, always a soldier. For cap badge collectors it was quite a show. A reflection of the old Empire. In the armoury later, over curry, another souvenir of Empire, I heard some grumbling over "what has England come to", as well as the obvious pleasure and camaradarie of the day. The full time officer at the company is a Ghurka officer!
The church service stressed peace, as is appropriate as this is not a day to glorify war. 160 million deaths in wars during the 20th Century, mostly civilians!
I heard a new poem at the Cenotaph. graphic, but a bit too jingoistic for me;
1914 V: The Soldier by Rupert Brooke
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.