The Glorious Dead

LLM
LLM Forum Participant Posts: 1,555 ✭✭
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edited November 2020 in General Chat #1

Lest we forget.

 

 

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  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited November 2020 #2

    Very few of us observed the two minutes silence as asked at our front doors , all olders generations it seemsfrown 

  • LLM
    LLM Forum Participant Posts: 1,555 ✭✭
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    edited November 2020 #3

    Sad, but each to his own.  Hope other did so in their hearts and minds.

  • moulesy
    moulesy Forum Participant Posts: 9,402 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited November 2020 #4

    No, I wasn't on my doorstep at 11, but I did stop what I was doing to remember a very good school friend of mine, killed in the early days of the NI troubles 50 years ago this year.  

  • Bakers2
    Bakers2 Forum Participant Posts: 8,192 ✭✭✭
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    edited November 2020 #5

    We weren't on our doorstep, can't comment on neighbours as I was at the back of the house.

    As usual I stopped for today's 2 minute silence and will do again on the 11th. I thought about my dad and the other 'lads' who volunteered. I recall him playing the last post and revillie at our church cenotaph. I remember my great uncle listed on The Menien Gate, a lad I was at senior school with who lost his legs in NI as well as the numerous service personnel who served and still serve. I also consider the mother's whose son/s went off to serve, how did they cope? Puts stay at home into prospective as far as I'm concerned........

    This is the first year I haven't got a poppy to wear and I'm very sad about that. However, I did give an extremely generous donation this year when I discovered a collection tin in the greengrocer's, few poppies left so the dog has the collar clip.

    Rememberance is personal and emphasised so much more this year. I also included those who caught Covid whilst helping and nursing others. 

  • trellis
    trellis Forum Participant Posts: 1,102
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    edited November 2020 #6

    Very strange day . I can't remember the last time I missed a remembrance day parade , either in or out of uniform. Covid may have prevented me being there in body but not in spirit.  We will remember them.

  • KjellNN
    KjellNN Club Member Posts: 8,665 ✭✭✭
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    edited November 2020 #7

    We have attended our local memorial service pretty much since we came here 32 years back, we always go unless it is pouring with rain, which strangely has rarely happened.

    The local service was cancelled today, and it is  very wet here, so we observed the silence in our living room while watching the broadcast from London.  OH's grandfather was lost on a minesweeper off the Suffolk coast in 1940.

  • cyberyacht
    cyberyacht Forum Participant Posts: 10,218
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    edited November 2020 #8

    Following up on B2's post, I was at Thiepval some years back and saw my name on the memorial. What was even spookier was that the date was my birthday.

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited November 2020 #9

    This year I made an on line donation LINK to the Poppy Appeal 2020.

  • Bakers2
    Bakers2 Forum Participant Posts: 8,192 ✭✭✭
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    edited November 2020 #10

    😱 very disconcerting!

    Met my brother and sister in law at our parents grave, did a quick tidy. Brother had managed to get 2 poppies which we put on their grave. Felt better knowing they could 'wear' their poppies. Mum always did a lovely poppy arrangement in silk flowers for dad's grave, which I thought I brought home when we cleared their house, if I did I've put them in a very safe place!

    Nice to see there had been an improvised service memorial in the churchyard, there is no cenotaph at that church just plaques on the inside church wall with the names of the fallen. There was a homemade wooden cross and about a dozen RBL rememberance crosses resembling a grave. Very poignant.

    We then took ourselves off on a walk around the fields. Socially distanced too 😉.

    It was a very foggy mild morning, then glorious sunshine for an hour or two, but it has clouded over all very atmospheric. 

  • Tinwheeler
    Tinwheeler Forum Participant Posts: 23,135 ✭✭✭
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    edited November 2020 #11

    I feel they would want us to survive. That’s why they gave their lives.

  • Wherenext
    Wherenext Club Member Posts: 10,586 ✭✭✭
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    edited November 2020 #12

    They gave their lives to defend Democracy. That's where the people choose their representative and governments are formed. 

    Whether I agree with this lot running the show is neither here or there. They won an election and get to make decisions. If we don't like it then we can vote them out again in a few years time.

    This is what my father taught me at a young age. Not long after he had returned from abroad with hand grenade shrapnel wounds incurred whilst on duty. He was a socialist but didn't hold the Conservative government of the day any grudge for sending him there. It's what he signed up for. So, no, he wouldn't have viewed the precautions as pathetic, even if he disagreed with them.

    We stood across from our little memorial in the village to mark our respects today. There were a few, properly distanced, all of them dressed for a walk. We just happened to be there at 11.00.

  • EasyT
    EasyT Forum Participant Posts: 16,194
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    edited November 2020 #13

    I am reading this thread and choking up as I often do when thinking of the sacrifices made. 

  • davetommo
    davetommo Forum Participant Posts: 1,430
    edited November 2020 #14

    Yes and lots of them still in their teens. They never made it to their eighties