Tuesday, November 11, 2008

90TH ANNIVERSARY OF ARMISTICE DAY










Today at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month of 2008, 90 years after Armistice Day, people across the UK remembered for 2 minutes in silence the men and women who gave their lives in 2 World Wars and in Korea, the Falklands, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan.

A memorial service was also held in the Heart of England at the British National Memorial Arboretum, also the location of the striking 2007 Armed Forces Memorial, shown in the photograph above.

An anonymous person criticised me for allegedly mentioning an "American" Arboretum, but I have visited our own very British Arboretum - 150 acres of lovely English woodland in Alrewas, the village where my daughter and grandchildren live.

My thanks go to Carol Rowntree Jones for defending me:
"The National Memorial Arboretum is certainly very British, situated as you said in The National Forest. The stark and very moving Armed Forces Memorial won the 2008 National Lottery Award for the Best Heritage Project - a public vote which demonstrated the powerful effect the Memorial has on visitors to the Arboretum".

The Royal British Legion hopes to raise £32 million from its 2008 Poppy Appeal to continue its wonderful work caring for injured and elderly ex-servicemen and women.

My late father was an officer in the Royal Navy for 30 years and throughout the long years of the 2nd World War, mainly on minelayers and minesweepers. One of his ships was torpedoed and half the ship's company were killed including the Captain.
My father was a navigator in the British Fleet in the 1944 D-Day Normandy Invasion and was later awarded the Croix de Guerre Medal for bravery by the French Government.

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