Fulfilling a schoolgirl's wish: Part 2: Where the fallen rest

Ingredients for a better world

Pray for peace, act in kindness for peace, mend relationships, extend a hand in friendship, listen, forgive, accept, be welcoming, share, explore, understand, embrace, light a candle, send a card, make that phone call, share a meal, mend that fence!

In today's world still as relevant now as it was then. I think the author had no idea that his words would still be so relevant today as it was then. How his heart would still ache.

Read Robert's story.

For the Fallen 

Robert Laurence Binyon,

Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21 September 1914.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

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.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

About the author

Laurence Binyon composed his best known poem while sitting on the cliff-top looking out to sea from the dramatic scenery of the north Cornish coastline. A plaque marks the location at Pentire Point, north of Polzeath. However, there is also a small plaque on the East Cliff north of Portreath, further south on the same north Cornwall coast, which also claims to be the place where the poem was written.

The poem was written in mid September 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. During these weeks the British Expeditionary Force had suffered casualties following its first encounter with the Imperial German Army at the Battle of Mons on 23 August, its rearguard action during the retreat from Mons in late August and the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August, and its participation with the French Army in holding up the Imperial German Army at the First Battle of the Marne between 5 and 9 September 1914.

Laurence said in 1939 that the four lines of the fourth stanza came to him first. These words of the fourth stanza have become especially familiar and famous, having been adopted by the Royal British Legion as an Exhortation for ceremonies of Remembrance to commemorate fallen Servicemen and women.

Laurence Binyon was too old to enlist in the military forces but he went to work for the Red Cross as a medical orderly in 1916. He lost several close friends and his brother-in-law in the war.

Source: 

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/laurence-binyon-for-the-fallen.htm

Link to the YouTube channel: Re -Tour de France

Fulfilling a schoolgirl's wish: part 1.

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.

My primary school years, well most of them, were in New Zealand. The war history lessons contained, for obvious reasons, references from an English perspective. New Zealand is part of the British Commonwealth. On April the 25th the ANZAC ( Australian- New Zealand- Army- Corps) commemoration ceremonies are held. To embrace one’s new homeland, it was deemed important to absorb this history as one’s own. In the early ‘60s right up to the ‘70s we immigrants were encouraged to speak English even at home. It would help us become part of the community, people and culture. My parents were expressly asked to not speak Dutch with us as it would harm our integration process. Best we ‘left that behind us’!

I conquered the ‘th’ pretty quickly and worked hard at sounding just like my classmates. Believe me when I say bullying isn’t a new phenomena. It isn’t! Kids were cruel then and are still cruel today. I feel for new settlers for whatever reason they need to leave their homeland. It’s a harder road to hoe than one anticipates, becoming part of a new culture while not denying one’s own.

Anyway, moving on. 

In Europe, one can be confronted with war memorials almost anywhere. Places which were heavily under attack, damaged or even destroyed. In New Zealand the war was fought overseas. Their men and women travelled to where they were needed. There are no buildings, areas or places bombed and destroyed. So all one learnt about the war was abstract. We read Anna Frank’s diary. I recall feeling a sense of pride. She was one of us ( the Dutch girl in
me) ! We saw film footage of Dunkirk. I recall a movie I saw as a child and I am sure it was called something like The Albatros, or featured an albatros featuring a recluse on a beach, the boats, the panic, the rallying of fishermen etc to save as many of the military from a sure death. This was something so real, so fascinating, and as I said, so abstract that it stayed with me to this day.

I needed to visit Dunkirk, Normandy and places from the history books and stories. I needed to see the poppy fields. It was number one on my list. I am grateful Leen, my husband, understood. 

I felt the history! I wasn’t alone I didn’t imagine it. Another couple who walked where I walked, said the same. They had goosebumps on their arms to prove it. 

I was in contact with a lady In New Zealand who I knew through a FB group I belong to. Her mother had served as a nurse overseas, including Dunkirk. I shared some of the images and my experience with her. It helped her ( her words) understand her mother’s story more. 

The world has moved on. The area where so much bloodshed happened has too. A whole boulevard has been realised. Apartments, shops, a beach to use recreationally. Quite a statement. I am actually quite pleased in the sense that we are now free to enjoy this part of the world in that freedom for which so many died. 

Freedom and war:  is still abstract. The senselessness of war! The killing, the destroying. A big SIGH filled with sadness escaped me as I wrote this just now. Smile at a stranger and you'll change the world.

Be good - be kind - keep smiling

Link to the YouTube channel: Re -Tour de France: Dunkirk