In 1979 ITV televised Remembrance Sunday from the chapel, live. I was in my first term and was asked to read the Lesson. I remember it was the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). I was placed at the end of the row, but had told no one in House about it as I was afraid no one would believe me and that I would get it for showing off. The result was that as I stood up to go to the lectern there was consternation and one of the DPs tried to pull me back into my seat.
The whole experience made me think deeply about the young men who had gone to war. At that time the photos of the House teams from the early 1900s were up on the walls of the DC. One could see chaps in cricket whites and rugger caps and then read the same names on the memorial board on the end wall of the room. My family, luckily has no one who has been killed in war; not so for my wife's, whose grandmother lost a brother in the Great War and a son in the Second World War. The sense of immediacy which comes from that is one that I only have at second hand through the community of the school - and specifically of Hailey. For my sons it is actual relatives. For us all remembering helps us to live and work for peace today.
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| At Al Hadra Cemetery, Alexandria, at the grave of his Great Uncle |
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