In rememberence

Three simple crosses on the war memorial in the village churchyard. The memorial was built in 1922 to commemorate the 41 local men who died during the First World War and it was paid for by contributions from the public. Of course as we now know any celebration of the end of that war was short lived as Europe again descended into brutal war a few years later. A further 24 names were added at the end of the Second World War and others were added later as records were clarified. One such name is of Gwendoline Peach, her grave is just behind the memorial, a 22 year old Leading ACW in the WAAF who died in February, 1944 - she was married to a local man.

The centre cross here marks the ill-fated Operation Market Garden; the airborne assault to capture the bridges at Arnhem. To the left the cross names a man who died during that assault. He was killed on the 19th September, 1944 at Oosterbeek which is where he is buried. He was 23. To the right the cross commemorates an army intelligence officer who died in Helmand province in Afghanistan; she was 26. 

I don't wear a poppy out of a sense of nationalism or to glorify war but to remember these men and women who were in harm's way and lost their lives. As Orwell didn't say "We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us" and the older I get the more I recognise just how young these men and women are.