Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday. From national memorials to small village crosses we pay tribute to those who were killed in war.
The
Cenotaph in London began as a temporary structure erected for a peace
parade following the end of the First World War, but following an
outpouring of national sentiment it was replaced in 1920 by a permanent
structure and designated the United Kingdom's primary national war
memorial. Designed by Edwin Lutyens and built of Portland Stone, the memorial was unveiled by King George V on 11 November 1920, the second anniversary of the end of the war. The unveiling ceremony for the Cenotaph was part of a larger procession bringing the Unknown Solider to be laid to rest in his tomb in Westminster Abbey.
The term "Cenotaph" relates to a monument to honour those who died, whose bodies are buried elsewhere or have no known grave.
The Cenotaph in 2007 following Remembrance Sunday
Across Britain, towns and villages
erected their own memorials.
Minto War Memorial, near Hawick in the Scottish Borders
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| Taynuilt in Argyll, Scotland |
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Clitheroe in Lancashire Aberfeldy in Perthshire, Scotland |
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| Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge in the Scottish Highlands. It overlooks the training areas of the Commando Training Depot established in 1942 at Achnacarry Castle.
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I grew up in Virginia and Maryland where there are numerous battlefields of America's terrible civil war. Not long after the war many towns North and South put up memorials to their fallen soldiers. Seeing these markers, many with names, always impressed me as marking the true heart of those communities. I thought the same when I first saw the war memorials of Britain and France. I always try to pause and walk completely around them, softly speaking a few names.
ReplyDeleteThey are all lovely and poignant - those memorials. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we had never needed them in the first place?
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