So close.....

First combined choir rehearsal this afternoon.

My friend, Cathy originally from the Isle of Lewis in the North of Scotland, told me that she had recently come across letters dated 1917 from a great uncle who had fought at 'The Front' until the 'Great' war ended in 1918. Having survived the 'War To End All Wars', though, he didn't make it home.

On New Years Day 1919 at around 2.30am, a ship called the Iolaire carrying 284 servicemen home to Lewis and Harris ran aground on an outcrop of rocks called the 'Beasts of Holm'. The ship sank within sight of Stornoway Harbour where the men's families were waiting.
205 men perished.

So many lives lost and shattered by war then and now.