I had been giving thought to another subject for a blog update until this morning. It is Veterans Day here in England as well as in the States, although it is called “Remembrance Day.” One custom practiced here that is not practiced in the States is the issuing of a poppy flower made from construction paper. Apparently, immediately following a major British battle, poppy flowers appeared on the field. Since that time, a veteran’s organization has sold paper poppy flowers for people to wear, in order to raise money for a benevolent cause.
What was poignant about today weren’t the poppy flowers, but the church service this morning. The sermon was delivered by an older man, who has lived in the community in which I work for all his life. Well, almost his life, except for that time he recalled so lucidly this morning. He was only a boy in a school not 100 yards from the very church we were in this morning. It was 3 September 1939, and Great Britain had just declared war on Germany. Immediately thereafter, the entire school was assembled on the parking lot (car park, as it’s called here) and the children were issued a blanket and a gas mask. Then, within a few days, he was sent away from his home located on one of the main streets in Manchester to live in the countryside with complete strangers. He said that he remembers Winston Churchill’s voice on the radio to this day, and as I looked around, there were a few heads nodding. One in particular was sitting next to me. He was a very old man, wearing a blue suit and had more military medals than I could count. I talked to him for a bit after the service, and he was in the war from beginning to end.
Apparently after the Blitz, the speaker returned to Manchester and was instructed along with all the other children to pick up shrapnel from the remnants of the buildings that were bombed.
As I was listening to this, I got a very eerie chill. These people were attacked. Excluding 9/11, our country hasn’t really been attacked. Sure, Pearl Harbor was bombed, but that was mostly a military base. My house in the States has never been under any threat of attack. Some people sitting around me this morning can’t say that about their home.
Following the service, I found myself talking with some people. One lady brought in some things for us to see. One was a certificate from 1915 addressed to her mother, stating that her father was still alive. She also had her ration cards from the war, and showed them to me. Another lady told me of when she sat under a table with her brother one night, feeling her house shake from the bombs. It was a very interesting, but very solemn, time.
As I walked home this morning, I was thinking about how thankful I should be that my life is not in that sort of danger.
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=392
