Remembrance Day

This morning i went to the remembrance service at the local cenotaph, i have been going for years on and off, first as a child representing various groups, Rose Queen, Brownies, Guides and then with my own children, representing various groups and now representing the Gala with the Queen and Princess. Its always such a lovely service, and as an army wife years ago during the Iraq war, there are a few people i think of who lost there lives. Its such an important time to remember and a tradition that i hope continues, which i am sure it will into the future. A local historian recently did some research into the names on our cenotaph and managed to find information on most of the names, where they lived and how they died, i think it helps to bring these people back to life and know they are not forgotten. Its really hard for us now to imagine how it must have been for those men and also for the family's left behind, in a time when they didn't have as much a contact with people, no mobiles, e-mails, internet and would have to wait for letters and reports, even the reporting would have been different, these days you have footage from lots of different people and a better picture of whats going on. Today the rain was bouncing down on us, but it was nothing compared to the story's of being in the trenches

My Grandad was a prisoner of war in the second World war and escaped from his camp in Poland several times being caught and sent back, the final time he got away and walked back from Poland to France to get a boat home. He didn't speak about it much and refused to collect his medals. Once when i was doing a school project on the war at about the age of 7 or 8, we had a list of questions we had to ask people and my Grandad wrote answers, that i can't remember now. I wish i had asked him more, but he died when i was about 12, and my mum said he never really liked to speak about it. I do know this he went away with a full head of hair and when he returned 5 years later he was bald and only about 25, whatever happened must have been extremely bad. I have a brass bowl that he got somewhere on his way back and carried home, i wish i knew where and when, how he got it, but it will always be treasured.

This is our Cenotaph, the pictures were taken on Gala day this year. Before our procession we have a little ceremony where we raise the Gala flag and lay flowers, along with the queens of all the other galas. 

Ewan standing in one of the corners and at the cenotaph. Molly was there somewhere as well. I was back on the gala field getting things ready for the parade.

This years Queen Laura, before she was crowned. 

These are pictures of when i was in the St Andrews Rose Queen, i think about 1989 ish. We were in the lilac dresses. Below i am one the left of the train behind the queen with dark brown hair. So its a tradition that's been going on a while.

Its nice to thing that 25ish years later my children are following the same tradition i did! in the same way. Thats a good thought.

I will have to do some ore research into family that have been in the wars, i have made a start on ancestry, Dad tells me one of his mothers family was quite high up in the army and has a display about him in a museum, or so he was told, so that's what i am looking at currently, will keep you posted about what i find

xx