In 100th year of the Cenotaph, Queen’s tears for war dead
We’ll change Human Rights Act to protect troops, vows Boris
She was a princess when she laid her first wreath at the Cenotaph. As a veteran herself – and, indeed, the only head of state in the world today who served in the Second World War – the Queen knows this ceremony better than anyone.
Yet, for her, it remains as poignant as ever. hence, the tear gently making its way down the royal cheek yesterday as she led the nation in tribute to all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
Flanked by the Duchesses of Cornwall and Cambridge, the Queen looked on from a balcony as the Prince of Wales placed her wreath on the Cenotaph before laying his own tribute. Stretching into the distance, veterans and families from every strand of the Armed Forces lined up to do the same.
This year marks the 100th anniversary not only of the Cenotaph itself but of the two-minute silence at 11am. Both were introduced by George V in 1919, a mere seven years before the Queen’s birth.
Very little has changed since. Not once did the Queen – wearing her traditional five-stemmed poppy – even glance at the order of service for this ceremony, knowing every word of every hymn and prayer.
her only other words, according to lip-reading spectators, concerned the weather. ‘Isn’t it freezing?’ the Duchess of Cornwall observed just before the start. ‘Quite bracing,’ added the Duchess of Cambridge. ‘It’s cold enough,’ the Queen concurred.
On the adjacent balcony, the Duchess of Sussex joined the Countess of Wessex and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence. Down below, all the Queen’s children, along with her grandsons, the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, and her cousin, the Duke of Kent, stood smartly to attention in their uniforms. The wreath of the Duke of edinburgh, now aged 98 and retired from public life, was laid by his equerry.
Less well-trained, however, were the political contingent. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, set off to lay his wreath too early, ran into an ear-splitting military command to ‘Stand At – ease!’ and hastily shuffled back to his position before having a second go.
FOur balconies along from the monarch’s position, Mr Johnson’s girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, appeared in a respectful blue coat and hat, standing alongside Lord Bilimoria, patron of the uK Zoroastrian Parsi community, and other faith representatives.
Twice during the half-hour service, however, she disappeared inside for several minutes. Downing Street declined to comment.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had certainly made a greater effort with his appearance than on previous occasions. Last year’s much-criticised red tie and anorak had been replaced by a dark blue tie and smart overcoat (which, unlike the Prime Minister’s, was also done up). Mr Corbyn’s lips were certainly moving during both the Lord’s Prayer and the national anthem. Come the wreath-laying, however, his neck remained as stiff as ever, prompting the usual did he?/didn’t he? online debate about whether his micro-inflexion of the head qualified as a bow or not.
Given that this has become an annual issue and that he is in the middle of an election campaign, it would surely have done no harm to give an unequivocal nod to the ‘Glorious Dead’. Yet he did not.
The Labour leader had already attracted criticism for his no-show at Saturday night’s Festival of remembrance at the royal Albert hall. While the Prime Minister sat alongside members of the royal Family, the Labour Party was represented by the shadow foreign secretary, emily Thornberry. Mr Corbyn’s officials later said that he had been waylaid meeting flood victims in Yorkshire.
For this centenary service, there had been a number of changes to the usual running order, correcting a few historic oversights. All the uK’s dependent territories, including Bermuda, the Falkland Islands and the Cayman Islands, had been invited to send a representative to lay a wreath ahead of the rest of the Commonwealth. Previously, their role would be recognised collectively in a single wreath laid on their behalf by the Foreign Secretary. here for the first time, too, was the Nepalese ambassador. Nepal, famously, was never subsumed into the British empire and thus has never joined the Commonwealth.
For more than two centuries, however, the British Army has been grateful for the heroism of Nepalese Gurkhas in almost every major conflict. henceforth, the Nepalese ambassador will take part in this event every year, as the Irish ambassador has done since 2014. The formalities over, the
great Royal British Legion parade set off along Whitehall.
In pride of place this year, were a dozen or so Normandy veterans in recognition of the 75th anniversary of D-Day. There, at the very front, I spotted Frank Baugh, 95, the former Royal Navy signalman who delivered that superb off-the-cuff speech at this summer’s memorial service in front of millions of television viewers at the Commonwealth cemetery in Bayeux.
AFTeR describing the carnage he encountered during more than 100 trips on to the beaches in his battered landing craft, he had concluded simply: ‘Thank you for listening to me.’ There was barely a dry eye in Bayeux.
Mr Baugh is now an ambassador for the new Normandy Memorial which, with the help of Daily Mail readers, is taking shape on that sacred stretch of coast.
Alongside him yesterday was former Royal Army Service Corps driver Allan Gullis, 95. He had been a plum target as he drove trucks full of petrol and ammunition across Normandy in 1944 but had somehow dodged the German artillery. At one point, he had given a few gallons of fuel to a French farmer desperate for help with his harvest. The farmer thanked him with two bottles of what turned out to be Calvados and he has carried a hip flask of the stuff ever since. ‘That’s why they call me Calvados Al,’ he chuckled, offering me a sip.
On they came, the Monte Cassino veterans, the Falklands veterans, the Sea Harrier Association, the Northern Ireland Army Dog Unit (with their ceremonial dog leads round their neck), the Royal Air Force Police Association in their white berets... ‘They’re known as “the Snowdrops” – not the snowflakes,’ chipped in David Dimbleby, deftly steering BBC1’s superb coverage through both lighter moments and the heartbreaking testimonies of those for whom this day is always a trial. Waiting around the corner, as they do every year, were hundreds of London cabbies preparing to ferry veterans across the capital free-of-charge.
Some familiar faces, however, were missing. Since places on this parade are always over-subscribed, the Royal British Legion decided to prune its lists to ensure that veterans take priority over civilians.
By the legion’s own admission, it has not been easy. As a result, organisations like the Girl Guides, the Women’s Institute, the Boys Brigade and the Shot at Dawn Association (honouring those shot for disobeying orders) were not in the line-up this year.
Nor was equity, the acting union. This seemed a pity in the centenary year of the Royal Variety Performance. We may associate it with pop stars and tame mother-in-law jokes – next week’s event features Sir Rod Stewart and Robbie Williams in front of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – but George V ordained that the first ‘Royal Variety’ should ‘show his appreciation of the generous manner in which artistes of the variety stage had helped with the war’.
Featuring everything from clowns to Sir edward elgar, it was such a success that it has been an annual fixture for the Royal Variety Charity ever since.
Another legacy of that year was edwin Lutyens’s plan for a centrepiece to the 1919 Victory Parade. He designed an empty coffin on top of a pillar and called it a ‘cenotaph’ (empty tomb in ancient Greek). The original was just a temporary structure of wood and plaster.
Then something remarkable happened. Grieving families chose to project their grief on to this empty tomb, imagining that it might contain the spirit of their own fallen loved one. In no time, it was piled high with flowers as public demands grew for it to become permanent. Come November 11, the crowds were colossal. The Government duly commissioned Lutyens to rebuild his ‘empty tomb’ for eternity in Portland stone. To this day, it carries no religious markings and no reference to victory.
This morning, all are welcome there for the traditional November 11 ceremony marking the actual anniversary of Armistice. Back in 1919, some doubted whether the bold idea of a two-minute silence would ever work.
However, as the Mail’s correspondent noted afterwards: ‘Yesterday’s simple rite had the grandeur and majesty of sheer sincerity in tragic expression. It was, in one word, worthy.’ And so it remains.
IN a month and a day, we will traipse to polling stations and cast our votes to shape Britain’s future.
So it is apt that today at 11 o’clock, the time the guns fell silent in the Great War, we remember the ‘Glorious Dead’ – those who sacrificed their futures for our freedom in all conflicts. We also remember the gallantry of those who fought and lived, those who still fight, the wounded and bereaved.
We, who depend on the bravery of others to keep us safe, should never forget how much we ask of them.
Yet shamefully, some have forgotten. the eminent former US general David Petraeus condemns the appalling legal witch-hunt officials are conducting against some soldiers who risked life and limb for Britain.
We applaud ministers, then, for promising to rewrite the loathed Human Rights Act to protect troops from merciless hounding.
Yesterday, the Royal Family – as ever, putting duty before self – led the nation in paying respects to the war dead.
Political leaders also took part in the twominute silence. (A polite note to Jeremy Corbyn, who failed to attend Saturday’s Festival of Remembrance because of the floods: the tommies on the Western Front valiantly overcame a little more adversity than that).
At weather-beaten monuments across the land, this solemn wreath-laying tribute was echoed. In an era of perpetual distractions and discord, these commemorations, when communities come together in gratitude and silence, should be held dear.