Spitfire

Not for the first time a Spitfire, Mark IX has appeared in the town centre.  Remembrance Sunday tomorrow has brought it back for another viewing.   The man accompanying the Spitfire was more open than the one last year, though he was there fiddling about pretending he was busy, so as to avoid the public.  I was told this was a Mark IX, I knew it was a later one, 1942 apparently, by the four props at the front.  The six exhausts instead of the original three was also an indication of change.  These aircraft continued to change until the fell out of use around 1956.  The jet fighter was by then the most potent weapon. 

Remembrance brings many displays such as these, and this one is indeed fitting.  However, all over the nation 'Remembrance' has become, 'Event,' these days.  Groups combine to erect a display better than last years and the act of remembering is pushed aside to commemorate with a display.  It reduces the Armistice Day to an event like Halloween, or Valentine's Day.  This should not be.

Certainly many wish to remember, they might have memories of their forefathers part in the two great wars, and some have discovered lost relatives while searching their ancestry and their particular war tales.  This is good.  

The original reason for war memorials was the loss of men in war, and the impossibility of the majority being made able to visit a graveside.  While tours did occur, some private, some through regiments, the vast majority were struggling to keep their heads above deep waters, a visit was impossible.  There again, with 300,000 men unidentified, some under gravestones marked 'Known unto God,' and others still lying somewhere under the battlefield, a visit to a grave could never happen.  The need to mourn at a spot where the lost could be remembered was important for a great many.  Wives, mothers, daughters were among the worst hit.  The declaration of death meant the wages stopped.  A pension might be allowed but could take a long time to work through the books.  In towns like this there were few other men available to bring in a wage and times after 1918 were very tough indeed.  The emotional trauma was not lessened with the loss of an income.  The suffering during the 1920s ensured that after 1945 there would be a new government, one that put the needs of the people before any other need, no matter how broken the nations finances were.  This country owes a great deal to the work of Clement Atlee and his men.