And today, Armistice Day, we are advised to repeat ourselves, so allow us to reshare the Best Post.
From Menin Gate, Ieper, where the good people of that Medieval mercantile Flemish town have been commemorating the Fallen for nearly a century.
With the laying of the wreath at the Menin Gate and the blast of the buglers’ Last Post.
This year is slightly different as a two-year repair programme is underway ahead of its centenary.
All of which will mean that they’re holding the ceremony on the lawn on the ramparts at the south side of the memorial.
We will remember them
It was different, and special, too the year I was selected to present the wreath at the Gate.
On behalf of our GTI World War 1 Battlefields Tour combining Ieper with the 1916 centenary of the Battle of the Somme.
In the shared silence each of us would retreat into our own private moments and tales of those we’ve lost.
The young men of the British and Irish and Empire army who had passed through the Menin Gate on their way to combat.
The Memorial commemorates the names of over 54,000 men who died in the Ypres Salient before 16 August 1917.
And who have no known grave.
… And them
Now for all the Commonwealth Graves Commission will help you in your search for your relatives.
And I found a great-uncle’s in Ieper.
Too many were never found.
And memorials like the Menin Gate, and the Thiepval Memorial in France. Where 72,000 Somme soldiers are remembered, preserve the legacy.
So wherever you mark Armistice Day and this year we remember an old soldier (and father-in-law). At North Berwick Memorial, know we will remember them.
