Lest we forget

Friday, 10 September 2010 16:42

But how can we?

Sadly we do - forget, that is - and the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) is a salutary reminder of the loss of lives that war brings. We visited there from our mooring at Alrewas on the Trent and Mersey Canal, catching a local bus (813) outside the George and Dragon.

A number of years ago we lived near RAF bases and John (as Vicar) was closely involved with his colleagues, who supported those who lived and worked there. One of John's churches then was St Eval Church, which has a long association with the RAF as it was on one of the war time airfields.

The Armed Forces Memorial at the NMA has lists of names of those who have died in conflicts from January 1st 1948 to the present day.

It is the central memorial and details can be found here - clickey click. We looked for the name of one of the pilots killed in the Gulf War, whose funeral was at St Eval Church. Once we found it it was a poignant reminder of those uncertain days during the war.

Armed Forces Memorial

Inside are some telling sculptures and a reminder that we all should remember the 11th hour of the 11 day of the 11th month.

Stretcher bearers and woman

Tending the wounded

The sunlight shines through the gap at this precise hour

Three other parts of the Arboretum were meaningful for us too. The Royal Air Force Association Memorial reminded us of Cornwall again.

RAFA Memorial

The Merchant Navy Convoy Memorial statistics are staggering - there are 2,535 oak trees, each representing a flagged merchant vessel that was lost in WWll. 31,908 seamen were lost (more than the total number from all the armed services). The mooring bollards there have a link with our present day boating - they are from Liverpool Docks.

Merchant Navy Convoy Memorial

Finally, but by no means least, is the Memorial to the Far East Prisoners of War, 55,000 of them in WWll, particularly those who were incarcerated in Changi Jail. Again this has links back to Cornwall and St Eval Church again as a wooden cross with an amazing story and the baptismal cover from the church at the Jail was presented to the church in 1971. By the way, the church website has a well known author (if you have been following our blog recently), a certain Gill from narrowboat Petroc! Click here to read Gill and Geoffs impressions of the NMA.

The Lych Gate was originally erected at the Jail by prisoners as a memorial to those fellow prisoners who died there.

Lych Gate

This stone was once part of the Jail

Inside a hut which is a replica of the kind at the Jail is a very moving exhibition about the FEPOWs. We were interested to see that a party of boys (or so they seemed to us), who were obviously from the Army, were intently reading every detail. Perhaps it was part of their officers training? I wonder what their feelings were as they walked around the Arboretum.

As we came away our overall feeling was of the futility of war and the waste of so many lives - we  honour those who defended our country, but find it difficult to see the reasons for some later conflicts. The NMA website gives much more detail - clickety click  More photos from our visit are here - clickety click

On that sombre note I leave you - but today we were back to cruising, another very long day with so many narrowboats on the move and moored along our route! Our Journey Blog will follow asap!