Commercial remembrance?

As you visit the many museums and collections dedicated to WW1 in the British parts of the western front, you begin to see lots of the same stuff …

Helmets and belts and hats and guns and shells, even tins of bully beef and maconachie, and SRD jars – from the rum ration.

It is a reminder that even as we think of those individuals who have paid the ultimate price for victory, that there were some who made an incredible profit because of the war. Arms manufacturers of course, but even those who make pottery jars or woolly socks, apricot jam and coffins.

Even now, how much do we spend to keep memorials as pristine as many are?

And how much is made from us in the cause of remembrance?

Visiting Ieper is interesting. Between the “In Flanders Fields” museum and the Menin Gate memorial to the missing of the Ieper salient until 1916, is a square and a street. Nearly every business on both is there to serve the remembrance tourists. They serve poppy chocolates. They sell any number of beers with WW1 themed names (Wipers ale was ok, but I preferred a French Bio beer I had a few days later). They sell poppy themed jewellery, umbrellas, bags, wallets, plates and pencil sharpeners.

(Not the British Legion stuff that makes money to support ex-service people).

100 years on and some are still making a profit from WW1, and especially from the death of hundreds of thousands of men women and children.

Is this really what remembrance is? Another place we can consume and tick a box of ‘been there, done that, got the t-shirt, ruler, beer, chocolates, or tea towel’?

A bit of junk ...

Spent this morning enjoying (!!!!!) digging the lawn after it was trashed by the chickens, and reflecting on how much the ground elder was a pain ... but at least it was the worst thing I was digging up ...

All from Sanctuary Wood.

From the roadside in Belgium

Bullet scarred wall in Bourlon

Shell splinter from a field edge

Roadside bunker near Bapaume - part of the Hindenburg line.

Shells ready on the roadside for collection by the disposal squads.

Ocean Villas museum.

Peronne Museum.

In so many places remembrance is an everyday occurrence, because the evidence of the fighting is still there, dug up, ploughed up, walked past. It isn't some intellectual exercise but a daily danger. Talking with Philippe (of Deborah tank fame http://www.tank-cambrai.com/english/home.php) he told us 2 friends of his, one now dead after a shell exploded as he moved it, removing his arms and much of his face. He was in hospital for 2 days before he died. Another friend was in hospital for a fortnight after a gas shell leaked as he moved it.

The museum in Peronne (more from there later - an excellent museum) is quoting 700 years before the Somme is cleared ...

They won't make it onto any memorials, but still there are casualties of WW1.




 





 




 
 

How old?

We've been members of English heritage since the kids were small - castles make good days out for energetic boys. We've enjoyed talking them through the history too.

We still love going to old places - York, Shrewsbury, Richmond, Middleham ... - and getting a sense of time and past and future there.

Travelling to France was interesting then, I began with 5 days in Merville, with a couple of hours in Bethune. Lovely town.

 None of it older than 100years. It was flattened in WW1, as were many of the places we travelled through.

As we remember, does our remembrance extend beyond those who wear uniforms and carry guns? Do we remember the lives and communities devastated by the passage of the war? Do we remember the collateral damage?

War is very big.

 

Tell me what this is about then ...

Hi all,

I have the pleasure of working for the greatest boss in all creation, and so I have the blessing of a 3 month break for study and reflection and refreshment. I also get to choose what to do with it!

One of those things that has been a fixture in churches all my life has been Remembrance Sunday. Which, even in my younger days, seemed to sit uncomfortably at times with the gospel of justice, peace, mercy, forgiveness and salvation that was preached the rest of the year. In ministry this discomfort has only increased for me. I have been in churches with many veterans of the second world war, who continued to suffer the effects of their service, and wanted time to reflect on their experiences, and to remember former comrades. I have been in churches where there have been expectations of a certain style of ceremony, and in churches where some elders have refused to serve on remembrance day because of their own discomfort.

I am troubled when Remembrance in church becomes a exercise in patriotism (Colossians 3:11), or a celebration of victory bought with the blood of men, women and children. I am troubled when we limit our remembrance to only those who fought on 'our' side. I am troubled when we limit our remembrance to only certain conflicts. I am troubled when people are not allowed to express discomfort with remembrance and how it is done, when to wear a poppy is expected in the workplace and if absent or joined with another symbol  then is a disciplinary offence. I am troubled when 'official' memorial seeks to silence uncomfortable bits of history.

Further challenges are faced by the growing distance between the events we remember and we who remember. My great grandparents would have been of an age to fight in world war 1. I never knew them. None of my grandparents fought on the front lines. My Dad was 3 when it started, my mum born halfway through. My children are even further from the events, and as I consider my grandchildren I wonder what they will be trying to remember.

There is also the challenge to the place of the church in remembrance. It isn't (in my view) a Christian ceremony, but a civil one. I have many friends who are avowed atheists, who feel much closer links with friends and family in the armed forces they want to remember. Why is their remembrance surrounded with faith statements they do not agree with?

Which opens a new door - what are we remembering? I have through my life, starting with Biggles when I was but a child, read war fiction, and history. I enjoy learning the history, and I enjoy the debates with friend over what bits of the 'history' we read are fiction. Many of my friends are similarly minded - readers of history, and wargamers who get excited by tanks and tactics. I know enough to know I know very little. I am always surprised by the level of ignorance about things we are supposed to remember each year.

So I have questions, and opportunity to reflect. I have just come back from 19 days of travel through the WW1 western front from Ieper to the Somme. I am looking forward to the opportunity to travel through Normandy in a couple of months time.

I invite you all to share in my travels, my thoughts and my questions.