Centenary of the start of World War I and Harvest

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combine harvester, dust, First World War, flies, Harvest, noise, requiem eucharist, St Michaels church, thankful village, WWI centenary

It is that time of year again already.  We are surrounded by dust and the almost continuous noise of farm machinery.  Since our return from our holiday at the beginning of July the fields have been systematically stripped of their crop which has then been transported to silos or barns.

The first places to be worked on were the commons and strips of common land at the sides of the lanes.  All the grasses and seeded wild flowers, as well as a few plants just coming into flower, to my disappointment, were cut and baled up for hay.  The verges to the lanes were cut and the hedges and trees were cut back with great slashers.  The fields of oil-seed rape were harvested and then the barley.  And now the wheat fields, including the one at the back of our house.

Good-bye, wheat!

Once the fields are harvested the straw is baled and transported away to be stored, muck is spread on the fields and then they are ploughed.  With nowhere to live once the grain has been cut the flies are homeless – for a while – until they discover our house!  We have a choice; either keep the windows and doors shut and boil or open them and let the flies in.  We have a rudimentary fly-screen on the conservatory door but none anywhere else.  Netting can be attached to windows but that makes opening and shutting them difficult and the rooms gloomy.  Houses in this country do not come with proper fly-screens on doors or windows as a matter of course and I wish they did.

This now brings me to the centenary of the start of the First World War.  That mowing down of men and the harvest of souls.

Today, the 3rd of August, R and I attended a Requiem Eucharist at St Michael’s church to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War.  I will quote the introductory address made by our rector this morning.  He wishes me to point out that his point of reference for the general facts and figures was a speech made by the Prime Minister recently.  The East Anglian information was from his own research.

‘One hundred years ago, on 3rd August 1914, the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, explained to the House of Commons why Britain was obliged to go to war with Germany.  His speech, with its heavy heart and its clear argument, was greatly admired.  Then he returned to the Foreign Office, and worked til dusk.  He looked up from his desk and saw the man lighting the gas lamps in St James’s Park below.  “The lamps are going out all over Europe,” Grey said to his companion, “We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”  At 11.00 p.m. the following day Britain declared war on Germany.

When they set out, with the blessings of their respective Churches, none of the armies had any idea of the length and scale of the trauma that was going to enfold.  For many, going off to war was a rite of passage, and in East Anglia “patriotism” was low on the list of reasons for the boys and men to leave their villages.  Agriculture was going through a deep depression that had been set in motion at the start of the century by endless rain and huge grain imports form the prairie farms of North America and Canada.  Many people had already fled to the towns to seek work, and consequently family farms had collapsed and fields were empty.  To those who remained, the War offered a golden opportunity to get off the hated land.  And so they enlisted in a state of excitement.  They would now eat better and have access to free medical care, and many thought they’d be home by Christmas, anyway.

Four months later, one million had died in the heavy artillery battles that presaged the digging of the trenches.  Four years later, the death toll of military and civilians stood at over 16 million, nearly 1 million of them Britons.  20,000 were killed on one day of the Battle of the Somme.  The death and the suffering was on a scale that outstrips any other conflict, and for evidence of that we only have to look at the Great War memorials in our villages, our churches, our railway stations, schools and universities.

Out of more than 14,000 parishes in the whole of England and Wales, there are only 51 so-called ‘thankful parishes’, which saw all their soldiers return.  Every single community in Scotland and Northern Ireland lost someone, and the death toll for Commonwealth personnel was similarly catastrophic.  The then Indian empire lost more than 70,000 people; Canada lost more than 60,000, so did Australia; New Zealand lost 18,000.  And as part of the UK at the time, more than 200,000 Irishmen served in the British forces during the war, with more than 27,000 losing their lives.

This was the extraordinary sacrifice of a generation, and it is right that we should remember them.’

Last year a couple of men journeyed around England and Wales on their motorbikes, visiting all the Thankful villages.  They contacted the Rector to let him know of their intention of visiting the church of St Michael and the date when we were to expect them.  They kindly had a slate plaque made for all the villages they visited and today this was unveiled during the service.  One of the bikers attended the service along with the local Councillor and the descendants of two of the returning soldiers.  All of the parishes in our Benefice were represented at the service and there were so many in the church there was standing room only.

The new slate plaque

As the plaque was unveiled by Dolly, who is one of the church wardens at St Michael and also a descendant of two of the people on the Roll of Honour, the biker who had presented the plaque  Councillor Colin Law read a poem by Anthony Devanny.

We are indeed the lucky and unlucky ones,

As we are the ones who have lived

to tell the tales of those we once knew

We are the ones who carry those scars

of things seen, done and lost

We are the ones who must never let those who are not here

be forgotten by the new

 

We are the ones who will never need to be reminded

that “We will Remember Them”

as we are the ones who will always remember

those we forever call friend

The Rector had also compiled Roll of Honour folders for all the parishes in his benefice, detailing all that can be discovered about the men who died and all that can be found out about the men who returned to St Michael’s.  After all the parish representatives had collected their folders, together we all quoted the poem by John McCrae.

We are the Dead.  Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

The whole service was very moving and I was so glad to have been there and to have taken part in it.

Photos of the guests and congregation chatting over coffee and biscuits after the service.  We also sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to the Rector and wished him many happy returns for which he excommunicated us.  But not really.  I hope!

We said cheerio to the biker outside and admired his bike.

 

The field next to the church had been borrowed to use as a car park.

It was definitely needed!

 

 

 

 

   We will remember them

 

A Good Day

Tags

barley, Common Whitebeam, Early Purple Spotted Orchid, English Oak, field maple, Lady's Smock, Lesser Whitethroat, Oak-apples, orange-tip butterfly, Red Clover, Red Horse Chestnut, Red May, St Michaels church, St Peter's church, stag-headed, the Beck, Turtle Doves, Willow Warbler, Wych Elm

I had a very good day yesterday.  The weather was much better than it had been for a week and I was nearly back to normal after my cold.  I hung some washing out on the line in the garden and then set off for Bungay where I had to get some shopping.  Just as I was nearing Flixton I noticed some birds at the side of the road, mainly woodpigeons but among them were a pair of Turtle Doves.  I was so pleased to see them I nearly shouted out loud!  Turtle Doves are becoming so rare, not only because of the reduction of places to nest in this country but also because of the dangers they face during migration – being shot for sport for example – and the lack of suitable places to spend the winter because of deforestation in Africa.  Even if we get no Turtle Doves in our garden this year I am happy that there are at least one pair in this area!  Their song epitomises high summer for me – a lovely drowsy, purring noise. We used to get them every year and they stayed around until the end of August.  In recent years we have had a Turtle Dove sing for a day or so and then go off elsewhere in search of a mate.  Last year they didn’t turn up at all.  Many people believed that was because of the terrible spring we had had.  Turtle Doves had arrived in this country and then we had the late snow and frost which killed some birds and others just turned round and went back to France.

I went to my usual car park in the centre of town and noticed all the trees planted around the car park had come into flower.  They are all Red May trees – Red Hawthorns – and look so pretty with their deep pink flowers.

 

Red Mays are not as popular here as where I grew up in Kent.  My father thought they were wonderful and planted one in one of the houses we had when I was a girl.  As I walked about the town I remembered having seen another red-blossomed tree recently and thought I would go and have a closer look at it later in the day.

I found the opportunity to go for a quick walk in the early afternoon.  The day had warmed up considerably but there were still a few black clouds around.  As I walked down to the end of our lane and out into the next I listened to a Willow Warbler singing in the top branches of a group of trees nearby.  The Willow Warbler is another bird whose song I couldn’t do without – it has a sweet song of descending notes in a minor key.  Weep, weep, weep, weep it says and makes my heart swell and I find I am near to tears at the beauty of it.  It is another bird whose numbers are reducing drastically.  Again, we used to hear them all summer long but not any more.  I hope this one finds a mate and stays to sing for me.  I stood under the Field Maple tree it was singing in and eventually saw it in the top canopy.  It sang and then busily flitted from twig to twig in search of food and then sang again.  I tried to photograph it but wasn’t quick enough.

This is the result.  Can you see it?  No, neither can I.

On the corner of our lane where it meets the other lane is a wide area of common land and a couple of ornamental trees have been planted there.  One is a Sweet Chestnut which is only just coming into leaf and the other is a Whitebeam, a native tree but not one that usually grows in this part of the country.

Common Whitebeam tree

Common Whitebeam blossom

Common Whitebeam blossom

The grass of this patch of common land was covered in Lady’s Smock flowers and a female Orange Tip butterfly was feeding from them.

The red-blossomed tree that I had remembered seeing is a Red Horse Chestnut and it had been planted only a couple of hundred yards down this other lane.  To get to it I had to cross yet another wide area of common land and in doing so I was surprised to see an Early Purple Spotted Orchid in the grass.  This one was a little past its best but I rather liked the colour combination of the petals.

There was more Bugle or Ajuga flowers and some Red Clover.

Red Clover

I love the pale markings on Red Clover leaves.  I am also fascinated by the grass in the photo which is just about to flower.  It looks like a row of tiny balls are packed into the grass stem or a lot of minuscule snails.

The Red Horse Chestnut is a fairly young tree so I was able to photograph the flowers easily.

A Red Horse Chestnut is a hybrid between a Horse Chestnut and a Red Buckeye.  On the way back to the road I found another Early Purple Spotted Orchid.

 

Our lane is looking very nice at the moment.

On my way back home I heard another summer bird but this was one I hadn’t heard before.  It’s song was a little like a part of a Chaffinch’s or a Yellowhammer’s song but without the end flourish.  It also had a few little sweet quiet notes to start off the song and they sounded very much like a Warbler.  When I got back I listened to a few of my bird recordings and found I had been listening to a Lesser Whitethroat.

I managed to get all my washing dried outside which was really good and took some more photos of the garden while I fed the birds.  I had started on a great heap of mending by the time R came home from work.  He didn’t seem to want his evening meal straight away so I suggested a walk across the fields.

This is one of many ancient oaks we saw on our walk.  Once they get to about seven or eight hundred years old they start to die back a little.  A little like us humans:  when we get to a certain age we start to shrink a bit too.  When they get dead branches sticking out of the top of the canopy they are described as being ‘stag-headed’.

A young Horse Chestnut.

View over the fields.

A field of ripening barley.

A Sycamore tree with flowers.

The Beck

Bridge over the Beck.

Views across the fields on the other side of the Beck.

The lane going up the hill from St Peter’s Washes.

Another ancient oak tree.  I think this one’s trunk must be about twelve feet in circumference – it must easily be about a thousand years old.  I must try to bring a tape measure with me next time we walk this way and see if I can get through the hedge and measure it.

I love standing under trees and looking up through the branches.  Trees are the most magnificent awe-inspiring things.

We looked down across the fields in the direction from which we’d come and then down the lane.  Many people think that East Anglia has no hills and no hedges.  This proves that we do have both though the hills aren’t very steep or high.

St Peter’s church over the field.

 

Fruits on an Oak Tree.

The top of the tower of St Michael’s church can just be seen above the trees.

More views across the fields from the top of the lane.

The signpost at the end of the lane.

Another view from the top.

An oak-apple with fruits

An oak-apple.

This is a picture of a Lesser Whitethroat!  It is just below and just to the left of centre and has a curly leaf over its face.  You’ll have to take my word for it that it really was a Lesser Whitethroat.

A Wych Elm and fruits.

Toadstools

Late sunshine.

We walked back home quite content and I cooked our evening meal.