With Proud Thanksgiving, Christ College Remembers the Fallen

Christ College held it’s first Remembrance Day service, 90 years after the end of the First World War.

Former RAF Chaplain Revd Steven Ware said that it was a sad fact that, although that conflict was said to be the war to end all wars, of all those 90 years, only one has not seen the loss of at least one service person. He also spoke of his experience as Joint Force Senior Chaplain during the Iraq War in 2003.

Pupils who are members of local cadet units attended in uniform, and took part in poppy presentation and led the assembly in prayer.

Mr. Mick Guilbert, who saw active service in the first Gulf War, read out his poem, a tribute to those who suffered in the trenches during the First World War,

The Red Sky:

In the bottom of our trench,

Amongst the water, rats, and stench,

We stare upon the reddened sky,

And wait until our time to die.

The whistle blows, up goes a shout,

Up the ladder out out out,,

And there in no mans land we lie,

And wait until our time to die.

The shelling stops and quietness grows,

Into the earth our spilt blood flows,

Tomorrow we will have another try,

And wait until our time to die.

The call comes through, we get a reprieve,

We have been granted two weeks leave,

We leave the line and some lads cry,

Perhaps it’s not our time to die.

There was a moving video tribute followed by a period of silence, after which the Rev. Ware read the well-known extract from Laurence Binyon’s For The Fallen:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them. We will remember them.

Revd Ware, who is currently Warden Of Readers in the Diocese of Gloucester, said of the service: “For me the most moving part  was the obvious seriousness of the young people and their very evident engagement with what the service was about. It showed to me that the young people of today have the same potential for the seeking of the good, the true, the just and the right as did their parents and grandparents before them.

Christ College Anglican Chaplain Hannah Cooke, who organised the event, said: “The vision behind the service was to enable our students to relate to the historical context of Remembrance Day, and understand the importance of making peace in our lives.”

This news item was posted on 11^th November 2008