Clive Howells, Gordon Townsley and Jack Kendle
Clive Howells, Gordon Townsley and Jack Kendle - Royal Corps of Signals

Video: Armistice Day 2017 in Harrogate

11 November 2017

Harrogate paid tribute to Armistice Day today, in front of the Cenotaph.

See our video:

 

 

1 Comment

  1. Armistice Day 2017
    I attended the service. I happened to be in Harrogate but don’t live there. I have and always attended a service for many years where ever I have lived. The srevice itself was very moving and I stood for the 2 minutes silence as I away do and always stay for to the end. However this year shortly afterwards I had to leave. Asking quietly but politely to excuse me. I started getting tutts and dirty looks. Then one man stood with his wife, stopped me and said. God, your only asked to stand for 10 mins. Which at this point I turned and said to him, in a perfectly normal voice. Actually my husband served for 22 years, my son was born in Northern Island, perhaps you should think on before you start passing judgement, at this point his wife said, that makes no difference. Then someone else turned and said to for me be quite, your spoiling the service. They where of course right, so I walked away. What I would like to say to that man and his wife is. Yes my son was born in Northern Ireland, so you might assume by that I was there too, living in really bad married quarters, where the only form of heating was a coal fire that always went out. It was so cold in the winter we had to go to bed with our coats. We coudn’t get coal delivered very often because the coal man was shot by the IRA, for delivering coal to the camp. The men who where trying to fix the married quarters where all blown up (6 of them) and they all died, for helping us. When my son was 3 months old I hid with him under the stairs because the camp was mortered bombed. When he was 6 months old our car was ambushed, with my husband our baby son and me in it. We escaped because the SAS saved us. At others times when out by myself, I was kicked, punched and spat at, even though I was holding my son. Whilst I was 7 months pregnant and on the way to my check up at Lagan Valley Hospital I drove past a landrover parked at the entrance to a field, a couple of hundred yards down the road an army landrover drove past and the landrover in the field exploded. Killing and maiming the men inside. I have watched my husband through the window, early in the morning walk away from the house until he was out of sight. Seeing other figures joining him. If you looked at the other windows, you would see all the other faces watching there loved ones, walking away into armed conflict. Not knowing if that was the last time you would ever see them. The man and his wife didn’t see me a few minutes earlier as I stood in silence remembering them All. I remember them all often not just for 10 minutes once a year. Like a lot of ex service people, my husbnd does not very often go to a service. He remembers in his own way which is deeply felt and personal. Yet people who have never served don’t seem to understand this sometimes.Yes, so well done and thank you for buying a poppy every year and standing for 10 mins. We are grateful that you do. But stop this sanctamonous judgement (which I see more and more of ever year.) I don’t need to be told when and where I choose to remember.

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