© Ryan Price 2010
contra omnia discrimina

More than 3,500 people wrapped up warmly at a Remembrance Day service at Victoria Park's war memorial in Leicester.

At 11am, an explosive charge was detonated by members of the 3rd Royal Anglian Regiment to mark the beginning of a two-minute silence.

The crowd then looked on as dignitaries laid wreaths at the memorial.

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More to be added soon, but I didn't take many photos this year. Audio and video clips coming soon.

I took a picture of myself by accident while getting ready to go out, and I thought it would be worth including. I hope to upload video and audio clips from the service soon, along with the Order of Service.

Update (10/11/2010):

As promised, here is an audio sample of the service (14mb, <18mins), led by The Lord Bishop of Leicester, The Right Reverend Tim Stevens - Please be aware that there are two loud explosions (charges) to mark the 2 minute silence; one at the start and one at the end of the silence.

Rememberance_Sunday_2010_in_Leicester.mp3

(download)

Click here to download:

Rememberance_Sunday_2010_in_Leicester.mp3 (14.53 MB)

A short video of the final march past:

Ryan
contra omnia discrimina

The red poppy, the Flanders' poppy, was first described as the flower of remembrance by Colonel John McCrae, who was Professor of Medicine at McGill University of Canada before World War I. Colonel McCrae had served as a gunner in the Boer War, but went to France in World War I as a medical officer with the first Canadian contingent. At the second battle of Ypres in 1915, when in charge of a small first-aid post, he wrote in pencil on a page torn from his dispatch book:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe,
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' fields.

The verses were apparently sent anonymously to the English magazine 'Punch', which published them under the title,  "In Flanders' Fields".

Colonel McCrae was wounded in May 1918 and died after three days in a military hospital on the French coast. On the eve of his death he allegedly said to his doctor "Tell them this. If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep".

An American, Miss Moira Michael, read "In Flanders' Fields" and wrote a reply entitled "We Shall Keep the Faith":

Oh! You who sleep in Flanders' fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew,
We caught the torch you threw,
And holding high we kept
The faith with those who died,
We cherish, too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led.
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders' fields.

And now the torch and Poppy red
Wear in honour of our dead
Fear not that ye have died for naught
We've learned the lesson that ye taught In Flanders' fields.

The Poppy, bloomed profusely on the battlefields of the Western Front in France during World War I. Legend has it that the Poppy goes back to the time of the famous Mongol leader, Genghis Khan and is symbolic of the spirit of service and sacrifice.

The Poppy was first made for an appeal in France and a group of widows of French ex-servicemen called on Earl Haig at the British Legion Headquarters and suggested they might be sold as a means of raising money to aid the distress amongst those who were incapacitated as a result of war. These first Poppies were sold in the streets of London on Armistice Day 1921.

Join me next Sunday, the 14th November at 10:15am to remember those we have lost for freedom through conflict and those who still fight for our freedom. Please...

DETAILS:

The County Chairman and Civic dignitaries will attend the Remembrance Sunday parade and wreath laying ceremony which will take place at the Victoria Park Memorial in Leicester commencing at 10.25 with the march-on.

Everyone is welcome to attend this county event. Please ensure that you are in position before the 11:00 silence.

Disabled car parking is available at the De Montfort Hall as usual.

More info:

http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/counties/leicestershire--rutland/news--events...

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

FOR THE FALLEN

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Copyright © Laurence Binyon