How we will honour the fallen...
When a major event reaches its centenary, personal memory and experience starts to harden into recorded history.
In the case of the First World War, which began 100 years ago this summer, none of the British servicemen who took part in the conflict are still alive to share their accounts, first-hand. Instead, academics and historians have been stepping in to sift through the available evidence, trying to make sense of it all.
And it will be hard this year to miss the results of their work. Hardly a day goes by without some distinguished person or other setting out their stall and sometimes, in the process, taking a well-turned potshot at their rivals’ efforts.
But the raw material that they all work from centres on contemporary accounts: official communiqués, letters, diaries, and newspaper and magazine articles.
So it was fascinating for me, as Minister for the government’s First World War Centenary programme, to see the feature in last week’s edition of The Lady, describing how this magazine recorded and responded to the events of 100 years ago.
The Lady was well established in 1914 and – then as now – spoke with authority and good sense.
What’s more, wearing my other government hat as Equalities Minister, I was really pleased to read in The Lady about the determination of women at that time to do more than simply ‘keep the home fires burning’.
Anyone who thinks that women 100 years ago were a passive and docile lot should note the words of The Lady in 1914:
‘The fact that one cannot bear arms does not excuse anyone from helping their country’s cause by fighting such foes as misery, pain, and poverty, the dire followers of all battles, whether lost or won.’
And it’s in this inclusive spirit – trying to connect as many people from all backgrounds, and of all ages to those events 100 years ago – that the government has designed our national programme of events and initiatives. These will take place throughout the four-year centenary, beginning on 4 August this year, the point at which, 100 years previously, Britain entered the war.
The day will begin with a service at Glasgow Cathedral. Why Glasgow? Because that is the city in which, just the day before, Commonwealth countries will gather for the closing ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. It seems entirely fitting that the service and sacrifice of our Commonwealth allies should be acknowledged right from the start.
Later in the day, the focus shifts to the military cemetery at St Symphorien near Mons in Belgium where a non-religious event of remembrance will take place before an invited audience of representatives of those regiments that fought in the Battle of Mons, along with world leaders and, most importantly, family members of those who are buried there.
I visited St Symphorien recently and was struck by the solemn beauty of the place and the quiet dignity of the headstones which include, incidentally, those marking the final resting place of both the first British fatality of the war, John Parr, and the last, George Edwin Ellison, who died just 10 minutes before peace was declared. The cemetery is made up of both Commonwealth and German graves and, all in all, seems to me a perfect place to gather on that day.
Later, there’ll be a candle-lit vigil in Westminster Abbey.
There will be events at five other points across the four years, the centenaries of particular battles that helped determine the final outcome, ending of course with a worldwide moment of remembrance on Armistice Day, 2018.
But there won’t just be events like these. We want the centenary to make sense to everyone. We want people, especially the young and those whose families perhaps did not live in the UK 100 years ago, to connect with it too. So we’re giving every secondary school the chance to take two pupils and a teacher to visit the battlefields and take back what they see and feel to their fellow students.
We are also laying commemorative paving stones in the home towns of VC medal holders from that war, telling everyone why they received them.
We’re also making grants available to help restore local war memorials, some of which are in a pretty sorry state of repair, and are aiming to give 500 of them listed building status to help protect them in the future.
There’ll be cultural events, too, and a host of other initiatives to make sure that the sacrifice made by so very many of our ancestors is marked with dignity, understanding and remembrance.
Remembrance, of course, is the touchstone for all we have planned. How could it be otherwise? We won’t be shying away from the fact that, in the end, it was an absolutely vital victory for us that changed the course of world history in countless ways – but we won’t be ‘celebrating’ that fact or sounding triumphant fanfares.
Don’t forget that, as well as changing history, the conflict claimed the lives of around 16 million people across the world, and injured a further 20 million.
The tone has to be right – not four years of gloom and misery, but no dancing in the street either.
In the case of the First World War, which began 100 years ago this summer, none of the British servicemen who took part in the conflict are still alive to share their accounts, first-hand. Instead, academics and historians have been stepping in to sift through the available evidence, trying to make sense of it all.
And it will be hard this year to miss the results of their work. Hardly a day goes by without some distinguished person or other setting out their stall and sometimes, in the process, taking a well-turned potshot at their rivals’ efforts.
But the raw material that they all work from centres on contemporary accounts: official communiqués, letters, diaries, and newspaper and magazine articles.
So it was fascinating for me, as Minister for the government’s First World War Centenary programme, to see the feature in last week’s edition of The Lady, describing how this magazine recorded and responded to the events of 100 years ago.
The Lady was well established in 1914 and – then as now – spoke with authority and good sense.
What’s more, wearing my other government hat as Equalities Minister, I was really pleased to read in The Lady about the determination of women at that time to do more than simply ‘keep the home fires burning’.
Anyone who thinks that women 100 years ago were a passive and docile lot should note the words of The Lady in 1914:
‘The fact that one cannot bear arms does not excuse anyone from helping their country’s cause by fighting such foes as misery, pain, and poverty, the dire followers of all battles, whether lost or won.’
And it’s in this inclusive spirit – trying to connect as many people from all backgrounds, and of all ages to those events 100 years ago – that the government has designed our national programme of events and initiatives. These will take place throughout the four-year centenary, beginning on 4 August this year, the point at which, 100 years previously, Britain entered the war.
The day will begin with a service at Glasgow Cathedral. Why Glasgow? Because that is the city in which, just the day before, Commonwealth countries will gather for the closing ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. It seems entirely fitting that the service and sacrifice of our Commonwealth allies should be acknowledged right from the start.
Later in the day, the focus shifts to the military cemetery at St Symphorien near Mons in Belgium where a non-religious event of remembrance will take place before an invited audience of representatives of those regiments that fought in the Battle of Mons, along with world leaders and, most importantly, family members of those who are buried there.
I visited St Symphorien recently and was struck by the solemn beauty of the place and the quiet dignity of the headstones which include, incidentally, those marking the final resting place of both the first British fatality of the war, John Parr, and the last, George Edwin Ellison, who died just 10 minutes before peace was declared. The cemetery is made up of both Commonwealth and German graves and, all in all, seems to me a perfect place to gather on that day.
Later, there’ll be a candle-lit vigil in Westminster Abbey.
There will be events at five other points across the four years, the centenaries of particular battles that helped determine the final outcome, ending of course with a worldwide moment of remembrance on Armistice Day, 2018.
But there won’t just be events like these. We want the centenary to make sense to everyone. We want people, especially the young and those whose families perhaps did not live in the UK 100 years ago, to connect with it too. So we’re giving every secondary school the chance to take two pupils and a teacher to visit the battlefields and take back what they see and feel to their fellow students.
We are also laying commemorative paving stones in the home towns of VC medal holders from that war, telling everyone why they received them.
We’re also making grants available to help restore local war memorials, some of which are in a pretty sorry state of repair, and are aiming to give 500 of them listed building status to help protect them in the future.
There’ll be cultural events, too, and a host of other initiatives to make sure that the sacrifice made by so very many of our ancestors is marked with dignity, understanding and remembrance.
Remembrance, of course, is the touchstone for all we have planned. How could it be otherwise? We won’t be shying away from the fact that, in the end, it was an absolutely vital victory for us that changed the course of world history in countless ways – but we won’t be ‘celebrating’ that fact or sounding triumphant fanfares.
Don’t forget that, as well as changing history, the conflict claimed the lives of around 16 million people across the world, and injured a further 20 million.
The tone has to be right – not four years of gloom and misery, but no dancing in the street either.