The Teddies Review - Dec 2021

Watching the lines of red poppies strewn along churchyards and the plangent tones of the Last Post certainly does not suggest a celebration. There was a reason the Great War found its name, as this was the conflict that was supposed to have prevented any coming after it. But national remembrance, collective reminders of the horrors of war, can serve two purposes. Either to show the absurdity and futility of war itself with its incalculable loss, or somehow to encourage it as well. The same society that mourned the loss of millions on the fields of France after 1918 was the one that embarked (rightly) on a second fight on much of the same ground, just twenty-one years later. Britain is a country where the military culture, though much dimmed as its power has lessened, is still ingrained in the national fabric. Our annual display of Remembrance is populated by the military vigour and solemnity of our Armed Forces, the shining brass of the bands and the tales of many an imperial victory. Britain, then, has not decided what it is remembering for. Is it merely giving a polite farewell to the male- dominated, white, colonial world those who fought in the Army decades ago saw - the last rites of the British Empire? Not entirely. Denying remembrance for those who have fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Northern Ireland or Europe would be spiteful to a malicious degree. To read the lists of the regiments of the Armed Forces, to go through the names, places of deaths, ages, locations, is to witness the charred family history of those who have served. To deny the chance to remember not only their service but the tangible sacrifices their deaths made will do nothing for changing

What Does Remembrance Mean in 21st Century Britain? What do we remember for? Is it merely an attempt not to forget, not to let the ashes of the past remain buried in the ground we stuck them in however long ago? Is it a natural human instinct to remember others in the vain hope that the same courtesy will be shown to us? Be it personal or national, our traditions and impulses often work in the same way - just as we remember a relative at a funeral, so too can a society remember a war, an independence day, or an anniversary. Once the tradition is set, or as the elaborate ceremonies become fixed, the first intentions lose their meaning. The years gnaw away at the initial idea and our current concerns are reflected in an act that happened long ago. Britain has had November 11 as a national day of remembrance since the end of the First World War. It remembers the Armistice signed at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, in 1918. For a conflict that claimed millions of lives in essentially fruitless campaigns, the moment that marked the sudden and complete end of the war was cruel in its abruptness. The most renowned British poet of that war, Wilfred Owen, had been killed a week before the signatures were written and the guns stopped firing. His mother received the news of her son’s death as the village church bells rang in celebration outside. Those church bells have rung around Britain ever since, on that same day, not in jubilation but in a mourning mixed with exultation.