Garden Of Remembrance, Street 11 a.m.

The Crosses

I stood before the crosses
glowing white in row on row
Everyone a young life cut short
as the names upon them show.

The dates they died below the names
tell of wars now passed and gone
Passchendaele, the Somme, and Mons
of battles fought, and lost or won.

History remembers, as it should
these men who fought and died
Whilst for their families left behind
a dull sorrow tinged with pride.

The faces of boys held now in Sepia
who died in days long gone
yet living on in memories
and hearts, still holding on.

Yet despite the hurt and grief here
what with horror makes me fill
Is that when I look behind me
there are more new crosses growing still.

Bill Mitton


Street held a remembrance parade on Sunday so there was no service at the Remembrance Garden here this morning.

The poet Bill Mitton was a war veteran; found this, more critical, poem of his less conventional and perhaps more thought provoking too.]

My friend and golfing partner Dave is accompanying a school trip to the WW1 battlefields this week and, as the only English school at the Menin Gate service today, the students are taking part in the service and Dave has been asked to lay a wreath.