Armistice Day & Remembrance Sunday

Today was Remembrance Sunday. The photograph below is our war memorial in Guilsborough, opposite the church. Each year we have a parade which comes up the High Street for the church service, then back down through the village to the Ward Arms, our local pub. Before the church service, Mum and Merrick (the Tower Captain for Guilsborough) were inside ringing.

Sorry for the poor quality of this video, it was cobbled together from fairly dubious footage, rehashed through a mincer of file conversions.

It stands as a (pixelated) record of village tradition.

My great grandfather, Thomas Alfred Sewell, was injured in the 1st World War and stayed on at Ypres, where he met and married my great grandma, who was a nurse. He remained as a grave digger with the War Graves Commission and helped found Poelcapelle Cemetery.

Great Grandda' Tom

Sadly, he contracted a disease from the bodies and died aged 40. Because he wasn't in active military service they buried him in Ypres Town Cemetery. In 2005, the town of Ypres wanted the land back to bury local people so Nana, Aunty Jean, Dad, myself and my partner at the time all went over to reinter him: three generations. Great grandma's hair was still sitting on top of his coffin in a bun. 

My paternal grandfather served in the Middle East and North Africa during the Second World War. My maternal grandfather was a farmer in Leicestershire. Many Polish refugees were given temporary shelter on his land after the war. My mother says she remembers sharing a fresh apple with one little boy.

It is a little strange to think that, growing up, we were always told to 'ask our grandparents' during projects on the World Wars at primary school. I don't think we realised at the time that we were the last generations to be able to do so.

See Also: 

Retreating, Part I: Ypres, the Menin Gate and Last Post. 
Horsing Around: German remembrance plaques.
Auschwitz I: the main camp.
Auschwitz II: Birkenau.