Due to COVID restrictions preventing a full parade, the group held its own Remembrance service at the memorial in Ash inline with current guidance. A core group of leaders attended, representing each section.
At 11am on 1st November, the leaders held a minute silence before the following poem was read out:
The Soldier
by Rupert BrookeIf I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by rivers, blest by suns of home.And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under and English heaven.
After this, we concluded with the words of Remembrance:
Kohima Epitaph
by John Maxwell EdmundsWhen you go home, tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrow, we gave our today.We shall remember them.
