For Remembrance Day.

Duhallow is one of the many War Cemeteries you come upon in and around Ypres (Ieper) in Belgium. It lies beside the Diksmuidseweg on the  road designated N369 leading more or less north out of Ypres. In it there lie the remains of 1544 Commonwealth casualties plus 57 graves of other nationalities.

Cemetery from road:-

View from gates:-

Graves:-

One of the graves is of a Second World War soldier, Private D Morrell, Durham Light Infantry, who died on 29/5/1940, aged 21:-

Last week in the shop where I picked up my newspaper I noticed on the counter a collection box for the Poppy Fund. That was nearly a month before Remembrance Day though.

This is the second year in a row where I have seen poppies available to the public before I saw any on the television, but I have since seen one sported  by a member of the public in a TV audience.

Thankfully the politicians have not yet got into the act.

Thirsk is a town in North Yorkshire. We’d never visited before so dropped in on our way back up from Knaresborough and Harrogate.

The Clock Tower in the market place was decorated for Remembrance Day:-

I spotted the Ritz Cinema:-

And this nice bridge over the Cod Beck:-

This memorial lies at the end of Canadalaan (see here) and commemorates the efforts of the Canadian Corps in defending the southern parts of the Ypres salient during 1916. Information about the memorial and the battles fought there is here.

The memorial garden lies on a small plateau hidden as you walk up to it by a wall on which is situated this plaque:-

The memorial:-

Approach steps, here seen from the memorial side:-

The inscription round the memorial’s base reads, “HONOUR TO THE CANADIANS WHO ON THE FIELDS OF FLANDERS AND FRANCE FOUGHT IN THE CAUSE OF THE ALLIES WITH SACRIFICE AND DEVOTION.”

The dedication reads, “HERE AT MOUNT SORREL AND ON THE LINE FROM HOOGE TO ST. ELOI THE CANADIAN CORPS FOUGHT IN THE DEFENCE OF YPRES APRIL – AUGUST 1916.”
The memorial lies on Hill 62, though, not on Mount Sorrel:-

Looking east from the memorial:-

Looking south. Such peaceful countryside now:-

Markinch War Memorial and Bench just after Remembrance Day 2019:-

Closer view:-

War Memorial Crosses, Markinch, 2019:-

It was one month and one day before Armistice Day this year (ie on October 10^th) when I saw my first paper poppies beside a shop’s till. If you were to wear them for all that time they would have surely have deteriorated beyond use.

On Friday 20^th Oct I saw one in the wild (as it were.) A young girl at the entrance to Kirkcaldy Library had just “dropped her flower.” She didn’t seem to know what it represented.

At least the politicians haven’t – quite – got round to it yet. Unless I’ve missed them.

My first sighting on TV this year was on Saturday night (21^st Oct) and it was sported by an Italian! That is just bizarre. OK they were our allies in the Great War but in (most of) World War 2 we were enemies – even if their soldiers’ hearts weren’t really in it. (The Italian in question was Chelsea’s manager Antonio Conte. This just goes to show the unpleasant overtones of coercion associated with poppy wearing by public figures these days.)

Tonight came the first “normal” TV appearance – on the BBC’s Countryfile. Three weeks before Remembrance Day. And how long before it was the piece filmed?

I will make my contribution to the Earl Haig Fund as usual this year but reserve my right not to wear the poppy. I’ll say it again. The servicemen it commemorates died for my right not to be forced to wear one.

Yesterday I had to travel about Fife and the Edinburgh area.

In St Andrews I spotted British Legion poppies (the small ones made of metal; presumably manufactured for those who think that the normal paper ones do not sufficiently show off their “patriotism” or generosity – but I call it their ostentation) at a checkout in the “M&S Food” there.

Later in a supermarket in North Queensferry, on the way home from a dinner at my eldest son’s, just inside the door was a stack of tins (well, nowadays they’re “plastics”) of Roses, Quality Street, Celebrations and Heroes.

Christmas has long since started in August – that was always when annuals were published – but Remembrance Day? They’re still beating the drums at the Edinburgh Tattoo for goodness’s sake.

I had intended to publish remembrance posts today in the one day this year between Armistice Day and Remembrance Day but 2016 just keeps piling it on.

Now it’s Leonard Cohen who has left us.

Not to mention actor Robert Vaughn – aka Napoleon Solo in the Man From U.N.C.L.E. but whose best performance was as a conscientious German officer, Major Paul Kreuger, undone by circumstances in the film The Bridge at Remagen – and, earlier in the week, a voice from my youth (though he was too soft-edged to be a anything like a favourite,) Jimmy Young, once a stalwart of BBC Radio 2.

I suppose everybody will be using Hallelujah to sign Leonard Cohen off. Here instead is one of his songs from 1992, Closing Time.

Leonard Norman Cohen: 21/9/1934 – 7/11/2016. So it goes.
Robert Vaughn: 22/11/1932 – 11/11/2016. So it goes.
Leslie Ronald “Jimmy” Young: 21/9/1921 – 7/11/2016. So it goes.

It was deepest darkest December when I took these. The Christmas lights were up and on.

This is from the south east:-

From the north:-

From the east:-

The George Square side is flanked by two statues of lions. This is the southern one:-

George Square aspect, with Remembrance Day wreaths. (City Chambers in background):-