Romanby Parish Council

Transcription

1 Romanby Parish Council BEACONS OF LIGHT CEREMONY AT THE ROMANBY WAR MEMORIAL GARDEN and STORIES OF ROMANBY, OUR MEMORIAL MEN & POETRY READINGS SUNDAY 11 th NOVEMBER pm PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

2 ROMANBY REMEMBERS Sunday 11 th November pm Gather at the Romanby Memorial Garden pm -Welcome & Eulogy Given by the Chairman of Romanby Parish Council Councillor Stuart Bradnam OBE 6.58pm The Last Post Played by Libby Fletcher 7pm - Lighting of the Romanby Beacon Lit by Councillor Angus Deas, Vice-Chairman of Romanby Parish Council & Mrs Mandy Lambert, Parish Council Clerk Our WW1 men their names and their stories Read by Councillors Angela Smith & Peter Wilkinson Followed by a moment of quiet during Church Bells to pay our respects and to remember our 14 men and others known to us 7.05pm Church Bells St James Church bell tolled by Mrs Judith Andrew pm - Readings, Reflections and Poetry Our nation, our village & our men we lost in The Great War Narrated by Stuart Bradnam & Bob Riggs and read by Romanby Residents Beacon extinguished at 7.40pm 7.30pm pm - Hot drinks in St James Church

3 a tribute to the millions A Nation s Eulogy being read at beacons across the uk this evening Let us remember those who so selflessly gave their lives at home and abroad, whose sacrifice enables us to enjoy the peace and freedom we have today. Let us remember those who came home wounded, physically and mentally, and the friends and family who cared for them. Let us remember those who returned to restore their relationships and rebuild their working lives after years of dreadful conflict and turmoil. Let us remember the families that lost husbands, sons and sweethearts. Let us remember the servicemen, merchant seamen, miners, brave civilians and others from Commonwealth and Allied countries - who fought, suffered and died during four years of war. Let us remember those in reserved occupations and the brave people who kept us safe on the home front the doctors and nurses who cared for the wounded, the women and men who toiled in the fields, those who worked in the factories, who all played such a vital role in the war effort at home.

4 Romanby s Memorial Men Private George William Brown d. 29/9/16 aged 20 George was the youngest son of Mr William Brown who lived near the Green in Romanby. The exact circumstances of his death are unknown, and his body was never found.. Corporal George Chapman d. 2/5/15 aged 24 George was born in Northallerton and his wife's name was Elsie, with whom he lived at West View in Romanby. He was killed, aged 24, during the 2nd Battle of Ypres. Private Robert Henry Clemmet d. 28/6/18 aged 28 Bob and his wife had two children. Before the war, he had worked at the linoleum factory on Romanby Road. His body was never found. Lance Corporal George Ernest Exton d. 12/10/1918 aged 27 George's father served on the Parish Council and was the Chairman of the Memorials Committee which arranged for the erection of the Romanby Memorial after the War. George died at Le Cateau in France. Private Tom Gains d. 2/4/18 aged 36 Tom lived and worked at Broomfield Farm, with his wife and son. He died during the last German offensive on the Somme. Private Henry Holmes d.12/3/15 aged 26 Henry was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs J. Holmes of Romanby, and he served his apprenticeship with a Northallerton draper, Mr Rogerson. He was killed during the battle of Neuve Chappelle. Private Lloyd Jones d. 17/1/17 (age unknown) Lloyd worked at the Romanby Dairy as a milk and cow tester. He is buried in the same cemetery as some of his comrades from Northallerton who were killed earlier in the War with the 4th Yorkshire Regiment near the infamous Hill 60 near Ypres. Driver William Morrison d. 3/11/18 aged 31 Will was born in Romanby and enlisted here. He has the somewhat dubious distinction of being the last Romanby man to be killed in action before the Armistice was signed on 11th November Company Quartermaster Sergeant Harold Senior d. 18/10/18 aged 32 Harold was married to Maud with whom he lived at Orchard House in Romanby. After hearing of his death, his wife circulated a number of cards thanking people for their expressions of sympathy, including one to the Romanby Cricket and Lawn Tennis Club, of which Harold had been a member. Gunner Harry Waines d. 4/10/17 (age unknown) Harry Waines worked as an Assistant Signalman at the railway station. The circumstances of Harry s death are unknown, but he was killed in the fight for the Broodseinde Ridge during the Battle of Passchendaele. Corporal Charles Watts d. 9/4/18 aged 37. Charles was born in Northallerton and was killed near Robecq, in France. He was one of the many Missing from this period, when the Germans overran the British lines in a desperate last-ditch attack which, it was hoped, would win the War before the Americans could have a significant impact. Private Sydney Weighell d. 20/11/18 aged 21 Sid was born here, and he was educated at the Grammar School. He lived in Arncliffe Terrace, Northallerton, and worked for his cousin, Mr Albert Barker, a farmer at Hewitson Hill. He died after being held as a prisoner of war at Friedrichsfeld in Germany, less than two weeks after the Armistice. Private Joseph Wells d. 25/9/16 aged 37 Joe was killed on the Somme on the first day of the phase in the overall battle which was to become known as The Battle Of Morval, which was fought between 25th and 28th September His body was never found. Gunner Alfred James Wilson d. 29/4/17 aged 19 Alf lived in Romanby and he joined up on 3rd August 1916, before which he had been apprenticed to Mr GW Hay, who ran a grocer's shop in South Parade. He was killed aged 19, during the Battle of Arras Proud to be Romanby 2018

5 Readings, reflections and poems 1918 a year of waiting and wishing MCMXIV by Phillip Larkin (1964) Read by chris thornton Those long uneven lines Standing as patiently As if they were stretched outside The Oval or Villa Park, The crowns of hats, the sun On moustached archaic faces Grinning as if it were all An August Bank Holiday lark; And the shut shops, the bleached Established names on the sunblinds, The farthings and sovereigns, And dark-clothed children at play Called after kings and queens, The tin advertisements For cocoa and twist, and the pubs Wide open all day; And the countryside not caring: The place-names all hazed over With flowering grasses, and fields Shadowing Domesday lines Under wheat s restless silence; The differently-dressed servants With tiny rooms in huge houses, The dust behind limousines; Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages, Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again. war speeds up social change Noon by Robert Nichols (1917) Read by sue adsett It is midday; the deep trench glares. A buzz and blaze of flies. The hot wind puffs the giddy airs. The great sun rakes the skies. No sound in all the stagnant trench Where forty standing men Endure the sweat and grit and stench, Like cattle in a pen. Sometimes a sniper's bullet whirs Or twangs the whining wire, Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs As in hell's frying fire. From out a high, cool cloud descends An aeroplane's far moan, The sun strikes down, the thin cloud rends. The black speck travels on. And sweating, dazed, isolate In the hot trench beneath, We bide the next shrewd move of fate Be it of life or death.

6 Life in Romanby in 1918 Last Post by Carol Ann Duffy (2009) Read by sarah bradnam Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy wrote Last Post to mark the deaths of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, the longest surviving soldiers from the War. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud... but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood run upwards from the slime into its wounds; see lines and lines of British boys rewind back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home - mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers not entering the story now to die and die and die. Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori. You walk away. You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet) like all your mates do too - Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert - and light a cigarette. There's coffee in the square, warm French bread and all those thousands dead are shaking dried mud from their hair and queuing up for home. Freshly alive, a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings. You lean against a wall, your several million lives still possible and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food. You see the poet tuck away their pocket-book and smile. If poetry could truly tell it backwards, then it would. Armistice Perhaps - by Vera Brittain (1916) Read by Kate Staines (Dedicated to her fiancé Roland Aubrey Leighton, who was killed at the age of 20 by a sniper in 1915, four months after she had accepted his marriage proposal) Perhaps some day the sun will shine again, And I shall see that still the skies are blue, And feel once more I do not live in vain, Although bereft of You. Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,

7 And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet, Though You have passed away. Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright, And crimson roses once again be fair, And autumn harvest fields a rich delight, Although You are not there. Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain To see the passing of the dying year, And listen to Christmas songs again, Although You cannot hear. But though kind Time may many joys renew, There is one greatest joy I shall not know Again, because my heart for loss of You Was broken, long ago. Battlefield commemoration IN FLANDERS FIELDS BY JOHN MCRAE (1915) Read by Paul Staines In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago, We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. Aftermath Speech delivered on the morning of 25 October 1415 by King Henry V, Commander in Chief English Army, Agincourt, 30 miles South of Calais, France. Read by stuart bradnam This day is called the feast of Crispian: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'

8 Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.' Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember'd; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. (William Shakespeare c1599) The Wound in Time by carol ann duffy - Britain s poet laureate (2018) Read by Angus deas It is the wound in Time. The century s tides, chanting their bitter psalms, cannot heal it. Not the war to end all wars; death s birthing place; the earth nursing its ticking metal eggs, hatching new carnage. But how could you know, brave as belief as you boarded the boats, singing? The end of God in the poisonous, shrapneled air. Poetry gargling its own blood. We sense it was love you gave your world for; the town squares silent, awaiting their cenotaphs. What happened next? War. And after that? War. And now? War. War. History might as well be water, chastising this shore; for we learn nothing from your endless sacrifice. Your faces drowning in the pages of the sea Proud to be Romanby 2018 All poems are copyright of their authors and/or their estate. All narrative & content designed, written and edited by Stuart Bradnam (who takes full responsibility for any errors and omissions) on behalf of Romanby Parish Council