Journal Jottings - A Week of Remembrance

LIFE:  NOVEMBER 5th TO 11th 2018

My  week has been  dominated by events commemorating Armistice Day 1918  and the end of the First World War one hundred years ago.

As a child I grew up as part of a family that always marked Remembrance Day either attending the local war memorial ceremony or watching on TV the national tribute in London. Unlike many who served in the forces, my father (right) was happy to talk about his experiences, but I am in no doubt now that we got a sanitized version. It was much later I realised the war was a life-defining time for him. He wrote down his memories for me and these remain among my family treasures. 

On BBC television this week, I saw so many moving programmes

Antiques Roadshow where people showed their family memorabilia and  told the stories of their ancestors who served in WW1.    It reminded me of our visit to the show last year where I took my album of  cards and documents relating to my Danson
family.

                   One of the many cards sent back home by my grandfather from France

• With my granddaughter and the Military Expert
  at the Antiques Road Show, Floors Castle, Kelso
   
  

  Last of the Tommies - An oral history project gathered over many years.  The three   programes followed the course of the war and  featured reminiscences from  soldiers, filmed when they were  in their 80's and 90's.  The films also showed so graphically what my great uncle George Danson must have experienced as a stretcher  bearer in the field facing shells and gun fir,  as he recovered the wounded and the dead.  The men  recalled their memories of the horrors of a war which remained very vivid in their minds, but rarely spoken about - as was the attitude of my own grandfather (below)  who won the Military Medal for gallantry and fought in the mudbath and bloodbath of Passchendael. 

   
  
   My grandparents - William and Alice Danson 
  
  
  I  thought  back to the  time of commemorations for the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1941.   My Uncle Harry had been among the men, wading into the sea to reach the rescue boats. I asked Harry if he had seen any of the  TV programmes.  I knew immediately  I had made a horrible mistake, as his eyes filled with tears and he was quite emotional.  He never talked about the war, but  memories of what he had witnessed so many years ago could still move him so deeply.  
  
  
  The Final  Hours - The Day War Ended -  the drama-documentary  with silent actors, solemn  narration and contemporary film, depicted the negotiations that led to Germany's surrender in the railway carriage in a forest, deep in northern France.
  
  I learned  a lot from this engrossing programme.  The negotiators were the Allied Supreme Commander Marshal Foch, a British Admiral Rosslyn Wemys and a German politician Matthias Erzberger - the latter two names new to me. Up for discussion were 14 principles put forward  by US President Woodrow Wilson with the  intention of never allowing Germany to wage war again - heavy financial reparations to Belgium and France, surrender of all weapons, Alsace-Lorraine returned to France and a naval blockade stopping supplies reaching the people of Germany.
  
  I ended up feeling quite sorry  for Erzberger - he could do nothing but accept the terms of peace.  But amidst chaotic scenes of civil  unrest in Germany, he returned home and was assassinated by naval officers who felt he had betrayed them. 
  
  A first class history programme, essential viewing for anyone studying those tragic times, with the scene already  set for another  war just twenty years on. 

Festival of Remembrance in the Royal Albert Hall  -  This opened   with the beautiful  solo voice of a choir boy, singing "Keep the Home Fires Burning".  Highlights for me  - Bryn Terfal singing "Rose of Picardy", the cello playing of the Young Musician of the Year as the audience stood,  holding photographs  of their loved ones killed in war, the Cumbrian couple recalling  the death of their daughter in Afghanistan,and the parade of the servicemen and the national flags of Commonwealth countries whose contribution has often been ignored. How could anyone not be moved? 

Service at the Cenotaph and at Westminster Abbey 

The four-year long programme of commemorative  events  ended with the German President Mr Steinmeier laying wreaths  at both the Abbey and at   the traditional Remembrance  Day ceremony at the Cenotaph, with  the march past of veterans - and new this year - a  10,000 strong People's Procession with the public invited to request tickets to walk  from Buckingham Palace, to pass the Cenotaph, and pay their own tribute   I would have been proud  to take part in memory of my extended family.

 

 The Cenotaph, London, Britain's national war memorial

Taken November 2007 whilst on a visit to the city.

REMEMBERING

• Great uncle George Danson - as stretcher bearer, killed on the Somme in 1916, aged a week after his 22nd birthday.
   
• Great uncle John Danson - died whilst in army training in 1917, leaving his only child an orphan.
   
• Great uncle Arthur Matthews  -  killed during the ill fated Gallipoli Campaign of 1915, leaving a widow with four young children. 
   
• My Cousin's Grandfather Edward Ingram Smith -   troubled by his experiences in the First World War.
  
• My husband's great uncle Frederick Donaldson - killed on the Somme in 1916. 
   
• My father John P. Weston -  who in WW2  landed at Omaha beaches with the Americans in 1944, moved through Normandy, Paris and Luxembourg, fighting in the winter Battle of the Bulge, before crossing into Germany.
   
• My uncle Charles Weston  - captured at Singapore as a Japanese Prisoner of War
   
• My uncle Harry Danson - evacuated from Dunkirk and fought in North Africa and Italy.
   
• My uncle Billy Danson - in the naval forces.
   
• My aunt Peggy Danson - who served in the WAAF and  worked on the barrage balloons.
  

MY FINAL THOUGHTS
I can understand the disillusionment of soldiers  at the end of the First  World War, as they  returned to the harsh reality of a life that was far removed from  "The Land Fit for Heroes" as promised.   But  I   defy anyone who says that such ceremonies  today,  with the symbol of the poppy,  glorifies war. The ceremonies are not celebrations but sad commemorations  - something I have tried to reflect in this post. 

 

My great uncles John and George Danson named on the  War Memorial 

at Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire  

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   Journal Jottings   

                          Recording my everyday life for future family historians   

This blog developed from the "Genea-Pourri" prompt yon Randy Seaver’s blog Genea-Musings.  I decided to change his title for my own version of this regular online diary. 

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