大象传媒

This poem is one which was collected on the 25th October 2003 at the CSV's Make a Difference Day held at 大象传媒 Manchester. The story was typed and entered on to the site by a CSV volunteer with kind permission of Joan Moor.

The Photographs-Joan Moor.

(Written after Remembrance Day Service 1999)

As the flags were raised and the sound of the trumpet had died away, she left the Gardens in turmoil. With the singing of Oh valiant鈥ears she had found difficult to control had come to her eyes as she thought with sadness of all those young people who had given their lives, so that the tides of war could be reversed and bring us peace and freedom. The young people who had tried to hold on to the peace and had been injured or had lost their lives in the Falklands, the Gulf, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo as well as those in the two World Wars.

The sound of the trumpet was evocative and made her think of the times in the Second World War that she had heard it played, night and morning whilst the Union Flag was being raised and lowered in the hospital square. This in its turn brought back lingering memories of ambulances lining up in the square waiting to discharge the casualties from the desert campaign when she was serving in the Army as a V.A.D.

Leaving the Gardens she entered her house, closed the front door glancing as she did so at the dining room table covered with old photographs.

Amongst these photographs she could see two similar, but, different pictures. On each was a fair haired woman and a uniformed man. There was one of a na茂ve seventeen year old, smiling as she walked along the promenade, wearing a green Harris Tweed costume, as suits were called in the early 40鈥檚. At her side strode a man some four years older, in the uniform of The Royal Air Force.

The other photograph was of a young woman in her early 20鈥檚 in the navy blue uniform of the V.A.D. with the typical mushroom hat that nurses wore at the time. She was linking arms with a Naval Petty Officer in his rough black suit, wearing a cap that always looked too small for a man so tall. Glancing at this photograph made her smile as she remembered that this later suit was made of doeskin and the cap he had was a better fit.

How fortunate she had been to know these two totally different men. One older, and the other the same age as herself. One had curly brown hair (when it was flattened down with copious amounts of Byrlcream), with laughing blue eyes. The other was sandy haired with serious brown eyes. One had chosen to fly in the skies as a bomber pilot and the other to become an engineer in the submarine service.

Sadly the Pilot, Peter, for the freedom we now enjoy had been killed. The submariner had survived, but the vision of the Prisoners of War released from captivity after the Japanese had surrendered to Lord Mountbatten in Singapore, frequently came to haunt him. It was a lasting reminder of mans inhumanity, making him feel guilty at his own survival. So much so that the Johore Straits, between Singapore and Malaysia became his final resting place, just as he had wished.

2003 And yet wars still go on, all over the world.

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