Remember them

We have had a moving and interesting day today.  We found out at the weekend that Dad had never been to the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas and he said he would like to go.  On the strength of a good weather forecast we took him today.  What a beautiful and emotional and interesting place it is.  The main memorial is the Armed forces memorial which lists the names of the 16,000 member of the British Armed Forces who have been killed on duty, died in operational theatre or have been targeted by terrorists since 1945. There is space for 15,000 more names.  Pray that it takes a very long time to fill in all that space.  New names are added annually by hand.  This is a shot of the outer curved wall, one of the inner straight walls and the obelisk which reaches to the sky.

The extras show the slit in one of the walls which is behind the sculpture  called "The Gate".  The slit lets in the sunlight at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to light up the bronze wreath in the middle of the memorial.  This information is given on the sculpture of partially open gates, the Eternal Gates to Paradise. One of the figures is a lone man pointing the way through the gates to the world beyond.  Then there is a woman soldier and a Gurkah Orderly to help the dead one on his way through the gates.  The other figure is the stonemason carving the message into the stone.  Apparently this bears a resemblance to the sculptor of this work, Ian Rank Broadley.

The sort of place you could sit and ponder for a very long time.  A good day.