How quickly some of us forget again.
11 Nov 2019
Dear LPG,
I have to admit to not having seen as many poppies as usual this year, which leaves me thinking about something I read on the LPG webpage on 02 September 2017 when you noted the number of things that we have found to commemorate over the past ten years or so.
Although I am hoping that LPG will post this offering on 11th November 2019, I am writing this on Monday the 12th November 2018 and this morning I am at Lewisham hospital waiting for my second knee replacement operation. I came in very early in the morning and had to use one of their many lifts to get to the part of the hospital where I needed to be, and while in the lift I saw and took the picture that I hope that LPG has put with my post...
Yesterday, Sunday 11th, the 100th anniversary of remembrance day, I was at church learning that the Jelly baby was reinvented and sold this day exactly one hundred years ago as part of the celebrations commemorating the end of the first world war and, as I looked down to the floor of the lift and saw the discarded poppy it reminded me of how quickly the seasons and commemorative days pass, and that their significance doesn’t really last. I felt this one commemoration day is so short as is its memory in the minds of so many people.
Call me cynical, but I couldn’t help but notice how quickly we forget, although there could be many reasons that it could have been left there. It is a fact that so many of those that do buy the little red momentums, once they are pinned on the lapel of the coat and the two minutes silence has (or has not) been observed, forget why they bought it in the first place.
For the older community the war is always more real, because if you are over 75 you are nearly sure to have had a taste of war, and personally known someone or have been related to someone who gave their life in that war, but most of our youngsters, unless they have a direct connection to a member of the armed forces, only have memories that go back a generation or two and the generation gap between what happened then and their lives is widening fast.
The commemorative days pass so quickly each year that their importance can also pass nearly as soon as it arrives, but I suppose that we can rest assured that it significance will come around again before we know it; case in point, a year has passed since I wrote this.
Just an observation.
OV, Lewisham.
LPG has found some information on the Jelly Baby and its significance with World War I and would remind readers that they can donate to the Royal British Legion charity at any time during the year. Details of both these aspects of today’s post are in the links below.
