Remembrance Sunday 2023

[Pam Downes]

For some reason, after nearly switching off the TV after the royal party had laid their wreaths at the Cenotaph I continued to watch until David Dimbleby said 'I'm now handing over to Sophie Rayworth'. She began her segment by saying that she was with a very special man, who was 101 years-old, and one of about a dozen surviving WW2 veterans. I still don't know whether she meant a dozen who were at the Cenotaph or a dozen in the UK, or a dozen throughout the world, but I realised that my uncle, who turned 100 in August this year, was one of them.
A bit of internet searching leads me to the conclusion that uncle isn't one of a dozen throughout the world (there's about a quarter of a million vets in the US alone if Wikipedia is correct), nor even one of a dozen in the UK, but he's still unique in our family as he's the first person to have reached 100.

I also received an email from a cousin (actually daughter of my mum's cousin) to say that on Songs of Praise today they're going to mention her grandparents and three of their children who were killed when a bomb dropped on a pumping station and killed them while they were having Sunday lunch in the house next door. The theory is that the German bomber saw a tall-ish chimney, and dropped the bomb because he thought it might be a factory. Cousin was meant to appear on the programme but she was ill on the day of the recording.

[Lesley Robertson]

I don’t normally watch Songs of Praise, but my Dad was a Cranwell Boy Entrant.. I’m wondering whether their monument will be shown.

[Neil Wilson]

Served at Cranwell, saw more of it than most folks there but that was a few years ago