Armistice Day

It’s quite incredible that it’s a whole century since the end of the War to End All Wars. It wasn’t, and the ensuing century has been remarkable for violence on an industrial scale; but somehow, if we are to believe the pundits, the world is a better place today that a hundred years ago. It damn well should be, because there’s no deep message in all of the histories except that the Great War was an unmitigated tragedy, with no possibility of redemption through sacrifice and heroism. All we can learn from the stories and studies is that, somehow, through all the suffering and death, the human spirit survived and forged memories of those who never came back, and those who came back changed irrevocably. It’s why it is important that we remember them, lest we substitute transformation for conflict in another century.

Every metaphor of war speaks of our willingness to forget and ignore the past. None of us, the living, can escape the legacy of the Great War – go back two, three or four generations, and the violence stains all of us.

I remember when I first marched as a bandsman in the Anzac Day Parade in 1974: there were still diggers marching, 55 years on from the Armistice, and lighthorsemen in their seventies mounted in units that were still formed. The next year I remember an old digger dropping dead from a coronary or stroke right in front of me as we waited to form up. Now even the 2nd AIF and other units of the Second World War are skeletons or represented only by descendants. Yet every generation must remember. Lutyens did us all a favour in creating the Western Front cemeteries, and we should keep going back to visit our countrymen. We owe them a better world.

It was such a lovely day, so incongruous when one considers the significance of the date. It should have been grey and drenched with showers; but, instead, the sun shone and the strong breeze whipped the sea into foam feathers.

I left Plymouth for St Mawes on the pretty ferry, too small, one might think, for the open sea as one crossed the Carrick Roads, but she shouldered the waves bravely and I got a stunning view of Henry VIII’s castle on the point.

I couldn’t stick to the path, because the ferry to St Anthony’s doesn’t run out of season, so I had to bash down the road to the beaches – not very comfortable, with a definite lack of footpaths and pathways. English driving probably saved my life. I headed for the beach at Trewithan and had the joy of spending my two minutes of remembrance above the beach at Pendower. The it was on to the Nare, the great headland that is the next navigational challenge for ships in the channel (the Dodman is for tomorrow).

On the beach, families walked and dogs played, one little black dog venturing into the surf and diving under the waves; another, a golden retriever, of course, found the lagoon forming above the sand bard and splashed through it over and over. Most people had a poppy, but life went on insistently.

This is a bit late for Armistice Day/Remembrance Day in Australia, but as I walked on after my two minutes of silence, I listened to two outstanding episodes of Conversations. “Armistice: the Good Friends” concerns two friends who discovered that their great uncles had both fought and died in the Great War – on opposite sides. They went on a bike tour of the battlefields to introduce the two men to each other. Entirely moving and I had tears in my eyes.

The other episode concerned the discovery of pencilled inscriptions by hundreds of AIF soldiers in a cave system in Naours in France, and the program connects the names of the writers with their descendants.

I can’t think of a better way to remember than to appreciate all the beauty I was walking through and remembering those who never got to experience it. Really worth putting some time aside to listen to it, if you haven’t heard it.

The Nare was the site of a deception installation during the blitz, and a Cold War bunker later. I was pleased to find these, as it gave me a chance to catch my breath after the climb up the headland.

Then on into the village, 20 kms under my feet, and down into Portloe, with its swish hotel above the tiny harbour where Henry Davy, my great-great grandfather had been coastguard.He died at 39 as a result of his service and is buried in Veryan Churchyard,

How do I finish a day filled with experience and memories? Many years ago, I discovered Siegfried Sassoon and resonated to his agony and anguish. Perhaps his star has waned somewhat as we worship at Owen’s clutching spirituality, but at least one poet was left alive to write about survival.