Gateway to the USA

Feeling at a loose end, it was time for a trip out to Runnymede, the birthplace of the Magna Carta. Since my last visit in February, the National Trust has completed a number of projects including installation of new interpretation panel and accessible paths.

The site includes a memorial to John F Kennedy following his assassination on 22 November 1963. It is built on one acre of land bequeathed to the United States by the late HM Queen Elizabeth II.  

A new addition to the memorial is this splendid gate designed and built by Master Carver Hugh Wedderburn and Cabinet Maker Simon Kidd, alongside young men at HMP Isis, an institute for young offenders.  It includes quotes from speeches by JFK, which still resonate today. 

The carving on the rear comes from a 1963 address to the American University in Washington DC and states:

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet
We all breathe the same air
We all cherish our children's future
We are all mortal
Wake up stand up clean up


The front. shown in my blip, comes from his presidential inauguration speech in 1961:

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days
Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days
Nor in the life of this administration
Nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet
But let us begin