The John Griff Column: What do we learn through Remembrance?
Like many I’m sure, remembrance has been pretty close to my thoughts in the last few days – and not just in a military, historic sense. Remembrance Day last weekend and Armistice Day yesterday had me reflecting on a variety of people who shaped my life, and the way I live it. Am I the better person through their teaching?
On Sunday I laid a wreath on behalf of the Lord Lieutenant in the village of Hardingstone. It’s always a slightly strange experience for me as a Deputy, usually arriving as a complete stranger with an official duty to carry out in a largely unknown community. I grew up in Wootton and as a child used to cycle through Hardingstone on my way into town. That familiarity has been eroded with time though – and it is a very long time since I last cycled anywhere.
A few years ago I came across my dad’s war medals. Although I knew I had them, I’d never given them much thought. The small brown bag into which they’d been placed decades before had sat unopened in my wardrobe, largely forgotten. As well as the full-size medals, there were also their miniature counterparts, mounted on a bar by Montague Jeffery on St Giles Street when dad was alive. The medals suddenly triggered memories of a man who never attended the Act of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in White Hall, but always watched proceedings on TV.
Dad’s medals told me some of the story of where he had spent time during World War 2, but only vaguely so. He had given me some of the narrative in conversation but it was far from being a comprehensive telling. Such was the way of ex-forces personnel – loose lips and all that.
After a gentle polish with a jeweller’s cloth I had resolved to wear dad’s medals on Remembrance and Armistice Days, as I am entitled by being his oldest – and only - son. I did so again this year – proudly – at Hardingstone. There, the act was observed brilliantly, and following a wonderfully played Last Post, you could have heard a pin drop as what seemed like the whole village came together to fall silent, briefly at 11 o’clock. In the cold, slightly foggy conditions, it became a little easier to imagine what things might have been like in battle. Terrifying, undoubtedly.
It wasn’t all about things military though. Remembrance Day also served to bring to mind others who had departed – some of them way too young. At school I sang in the choir with a fellow student – also called John - who briefly endured a very tough, time as an adult. His span was to be a tragically short one and ended with him taking his own life. His loss still haunts me, because he didn’t confide his struggles to any of us as his closest friends. I wish he had and also wish I knew why he hadn’t, leaving us as he did in his mid-twenties.
After John’s death, his bereft parents had invited a group of us to take whatever of his belongings and clothes we wanted to as mementoes of someone destined not to grow old. I found the experience of visiting and selecting something very hard – but in turn I think (and hope) that it might have helped the family with at least some measure of closure.
I chose John’s black shoes – and have worn them ever since. Polished occasionally, they get little use and are deliberately the only black shoes I possess. I wore them on Remembrance Day in Hardingstone, so that in some measure John was not forgotten and still plays a part in my life, albeit passively. I’ve been wearing those shoes for well over thirty years. Now slightly tight on my ageing feet, they give their own, salutary reminder of their previous owner.
Armistice Day yesterday will have seen some fall silent for the second time in under a week. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month a small party will have processed to the cenotaph behind All Saints Church to again call to mind the fallen. Like Whitehall’s, Wood Hill’s cenotaph was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Often otherwise ignored, it will have provided an important focus for thought, and remembrance of many, by many. Just as it should.
The lessons of service for the greater good are still being taught by the now silent who live on in our thoughts, not just on an appointed day or days. Every act of remembrance – however public or private and whether for a couple of minutes or just a few seconds, might help to let a little peace in. And we would certainly benefit from that.