LIVERPOOL REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY: 10/11/19.
The morning was fine and dry with enough blue sky to make a sailor a pair of pants, as the saying goes.And in front of St George’s Hall, the pipe band of the Liverpool Scottish were playing Green Hills of Tyrol – that lament of a Scottish soldier in the Crimean War.
Anyway, it was a full hour ahead of the firing of the guns signifying the two minute silence, and a large crowd gathered amidst the medals and badges. This didn’t pass like a piece of scenery, having no purpose than a back drop, but instead these were ordinary people who had come along to pay their respects and it was gratifying to know that an announcement in St John’s Market area urged shoppers to honour the two minute silence.
But of course most people needed no bidding: Liverpool is not just a port city connected to the Merchant Navy, but throughout history a city providing recruits to all armed services.The stirring inscription on the south frieze of St Georges’ Hall memorial reading ‘Out of the North came a Mighty Army’ perfectly sums up Liverpool’s contribution to freedom throughout two world wars.
This year is the 75th Anniversay of D-Day, but the Battle of Monte Cassino, Arnhem and the Battles of Kohima and Imphal, too, and it was appropriate that a prayer offered in the Sikh tradition by Mr Hardev Singh Sohal was to be read, this of course underlining the internationalist effort of defeating fascism.
By this time the service had already started and no doubt Mr Hardev Singh’s address alluded to the sacrifices made by the allied armies’ Kohima offensive in ’44; the Kohima epitaph: ‘When you go home, tell them of us, and say for your tomorrow we gave our today’ was just part of the struggle against fascism by people of many faiths and nationalities.
By now a spirit of memory brooded over St George’s Hall and I thought of WW2 and also to that conflict of a hundred years ago. Maybe in this modern age we’re so caught up in the various ‘ism’s and how to avoid giving offence that we forget that in the Merchant Navy and Armed Forces battles there wasn’t much Ageism, Ableism, Racism or Sexism at all.The Indian Army at Kohima were awarded as many Military Medals as the British did. And in the MN, for example, foreign crews under the Red Duster such as Indian seamen from the Malta convoy vessel Erinpura collected nine awards for exceptional bravery as they rescued white officers, whilst the entire Chinese crew lost from the Shell oil tanker Chama in 1941, was just one crew of hundreds ‘lost to the Allied cause.’
Ageism was scarcely an issue either: the oldest merchant seaman was a 79 years old cook; whilst two brothers who signed on the same ship perished on the North Atlantic – Ken and Ray Lewis from Cardiff – were torpedoed on SS Fiscus. They were aged 14 and 15 years respectively. At Dunkirk, 16 year old Domenico A’Agostini, a Royal Navy rating, lost his life in the wreckage of HMS Grafton.In WW1, Rifleman V J Strudwick was killed in France. He was 15 years old. We shouldn’t ask why these boys were on the front line in the first place. All we know is they made the ultimate sacrifice.
In all services, women held the highest awards for bravery including stewardess Annie Green (Kings Commendation for Brave Conduct) when the Andalucian Star was sunk off West Africa in 1942. Victoria Drummond – Britain’s first woman marine engineer – received awards for service under enemy fire.
Ableism – that form of discrimination against people who aren’t able bodied – was hard to find in a lifeboat when everyone helped each other despite terrible injuries, a fact that wouldn’t have escaped British Army Sergeant Johnson Beharry from Grenada who, despite shrapnel injuries steered his Warrior vehicle to safety. For this he was awarded the Victoria Cross for valour in the 2004 Iraq War.
Anyway, returning to the service and by now the March Past commenced after which the Liverpool Scottish pipe band played a lighter, more rhythmic music as the crowd dispersed. It was now easier to see the various forms of service uniform amidst the thousands of poppies and I thought, well, that’s it till next year.
It was a humbling experience and I watched some of the TV coverage the same night – mostly from London – reflecting that the day also spared us from media overkill about politics and Brexit.So it came as shock two days later to learn that politics had in fact become intertwined with Armistice Day in the form of two MP’s (one Conservative and one Labour) who it was revealed had claimed expenses for poppy wreaths.Widely reported in many newspapers and the BBC, the Daily Mirror disclosed that Assistant Government Whip Jo Churchill claimed £92.50 (1) whilst the Sun (2) revealed that two Labour MP’s claimed around £17 each for poppy wreaths on ‘expenses.’
The Sun is free to publish what it wants as anyone from Liverpool well knows; however, it’s a pity that the Sun didn’t have further space to report that in 2009 a certain Boris Johnson had submitted a claim for £16.50 for a poppy wreath whilst he was MP for Hendon. (3)So seventy nine years on, after torpedoed merchant crews were struggling on the icy North Atlantic with the further insult of being ‘off-pay’ because their ship was destroyed, some MP’s are plundering taxpayers’ money to proclaim their gratitude.Despicable isn’t it?
1) 2019, ‘Assistant Governor Whip Claims Expenses’ Daily Mirror, 31.03.2019 (accessed 12.11.19)
2) 2019, ‘Wreath Row: Labour MP blasted for claiming £17 Remembrance Sunday poppy wreath’ Sun, 08.11.2019 (accessed 11.11.19)
(3) 2019 ‘Poppy It On Expenses’ Private Eye, 13 Nov – 28 Nov 2019, Number 1509, p.3.