100 Years In Which To Learn

For most of us, thankfully, the true horror that was the grim reality of WW1 is quite unimaginable. The vast majority of people in the UK live buffeted from immediate and present danger; we are warm, clean and safe. It takes a huge leap of imagination to imagine trench life- not feisty propaganda trenches, nor jolly Tommy and good old British spirit trenches- real trenches; stinking, terrifying, tragic ones where you would be forced daily to witness and inflict horrors. Horrors so wounding to the soul many who returned could not, and would not, ever speak of them.

1245 men and boys are listed in the Book of Remembrance in Stockton Parish Church. To commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the declaration of war at 11pm on 4 August. The Great War. The War To End All Wars. Residents from across the borough of Stockton grew Sunflowers, each in honour of an individual lost life. The Sunflowers were then cut down in their prime and brought to a garden of remembrance at Parish Church over the weekend marking the start of a vigil 1245 minutes long.

Grief and loss is agonising. We all still suffer this of course, we all have felt it, the one thing we know for sure in our lives is that one day we too shall die. The sheer volume of the scale of the losses not just across Stockton, but Europe, and Earth, between 1914 and 1918 is what makes it so mind-blowing. And this was no accident, no succor could be found in that for those left behind, this was a man-made atrocity.

Life is precious. Every day is a gift. We cannot reverse history and stop the loss of these men’s lives, wiping out the shockwaves of pain that these would have left behind in our town. We can honour them however by marking them, connecting to them and taking responsibility for what we now have today. That which was stolen from them- we are still here, we can live for ourselves and for them too. We can build spaces and communities of peace and love. We can create a legacy filled with pledges and promises to share kindness, compassion, knowledge and fun.