On Monday, 11 November 2024, at 11 am, people gathered at the War Memorial for a two-minute silence to mark Armistice Day. This silence began with the Town Crier ringing a bell and ended with a veteran reciting the verse:
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”
The crowd around the memorial, joined by others on the pavement across the road, responded, “We will remember them.”
Among those gathered was a class from Thameside School, continuing a tradition of attending for nearly a decade.
It’s a pity that the phrase “Dulce et decorum est…..” remains on the war memorial. We should consider Wilfred Owen’s comment in his poem of that name. After saying that if we were to experience the horrors of the front he ends with:
“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”