Monday, November 09, 2009

Hurrying about...

...getting things ready for the Towards Advent Festival (this Sat, Nov 14th, Westminster Cathedral Hall - BE THERE!), interspersed with family activities. Much of last week was spent assisting an elderly relative to move - she is now happily settled...sorting through the various photographs, cleaning and re-arranging etc was in many ways an extraordinary experience, and one perhaps peculiarly suited to the days just before Remembrance Day. The photographs of my uncles in wartime uniform are a sudden window on to an utterly different era. Even the faces are not modern ones - thinner, somehow more sharply defined...

...And in the middle of all this, I was asked to join in a discussion on BBC radio, about a young man caught on YouTube using a War memorial as a lavatory. What did I think would be a suitable way for him to show remorse/be punished/learn how to behave better? He's 19. My suggestion: he should go to 19 war memorials across Britain, write down carefully and accurately the names on each (this information is needed, incidentally - many of the names, especially from WWI, are being eroded by time and weather), clean and tidy the whole memorial and its surroundings carefully, removing all litter etc, and leave a poppy wreath with a short note of apology for his earlier behaviour...

1 comment:

Victoria said...

I think your suggestion was an excellent one. Was it accepted?