…to remember to remember. Yes, a mouthful, but considering why it is that we should do so does tend to put things into perspective. All the nameless and now largely forgotten women who brought about the female vote; innocent victims of circumstance, such as the passengers on the Lusitania, the centenary of whose sinking has just been commemorated; the millions forced into brutal labour because of their views or the blood in their veins…it doesn’t take much pondering to add to this list.
This past weekend I was on a tour with the Wadhurst Brass Band – more on the music later. Amongst other things we squeezed in a visit to Vimy Ridge and to the bombed remains of the Bunker in the forest at Eperlecques. This is a V2 rocket site of Star Wars proportions from the Second World War: massive concrete walls, very damp and dark and haunted by the presence of the forced labourers who were driven to construct it, a presence which I found disturbing (I had felt the same when visiting the underground hospital complex constructed on Guernsey during the Nazi occupation). It is extremely well presented as a historical site, including an audio introduction presented whilst visitors are stood in a cattle truck – shades of Auschwitz and extremely unsettling: at least I had the promise of getting out into the sunshine… How incongruous to be surrounded by the beauty of Nature, through the reborn forest, on a pleasant early summer’s day with trees full of singing birds and yet to be so close to so much human misery! That’s why we should never forget…
The Canadians turned out in some force when we also played under the Menin Gate in Ypres on Friday 8th May. Princes Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry had just been awarded the Freedom of the City of Ypres and were remembering their dead of the First War, together with the Edmonton Police Pipe Band (an interesting musical mix to the proceedings!). When you visit Vimy Ridge perhaps you also understand why Canadians cross a mighty ocean to be nearer the reason for their remembrance: today, sheep graze peacefully amongst the shell craters from a battle, the objective of which must have seemed impossible. After all, who would run up a very steep hill straight into blazing machine guns? And yet the bravery of soldiers thousands of mile from home did just that. Voilà pourquoi le Canada se souvient.
The village of Wadhurst (about a 12 minute drive from Rotherfield, provided you don’t get stuck behind a farm vehicle on the road!) is twinned with the town of Aubers in Northern France. Those of you who have read my previous blogs will know about the march I was commissioned to compose to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Aubers Ridge on 9th May, 1915. Firstly, I have to say that the people of Aubers and the Twinning Association made us all feel very welcome indeed. We performed a concert in Aubers Church on the evening of the anniversary, which was well attended. You can watch a live recording of the march AUBERS RIDGE here:
Je présentai ma marche au public en français et aussi en anglais. My mother, who was a fluent French speaker, would have been quite proud, I think!
So, it would seem from my experience that remembering has no time limit: we remember events without having any idea of who the people were who were involved in them; we trek to all sorts of places – from Isandhlwana and Rorke’s Drift in Zululand to Waterloo to the Bunker in Eperlecques forest – and we ponder and, hopefully, think of history and those who were part of it and, in so doing, we also become a miniscule part of that same history. And that brings me to the simplicity of a single Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone in Wadhurst churchyard. The only one of the 25 Men of Wadhurst to return home (as a fatality) is buried there. Through the simple act of placing a poppy, a person who is long-gone and is a total stranger to me is remembered.
After all, if we do not know from whence we have travelled, how can we possibly know who we are and where we might be going?
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