Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
100 years on, the teenager whose Thank You speaks for the nation
Lucy’s poem to heroes moves the Queen
A CENTURY on from the end of a war renowned for its soldier poets, it was lines from a 14-yearold schoolgirl that moistened eyes at a Festival of Remembrance yesterday.
Standing before the Queen, Lucy Atrill summed up the mood of a nation with a poem as fitting as any to commemorate the sacrifice made for us in the trenches so long ago.
“If you hadn’t given your life in France/ If you hadn’t stepped on that train/ Your boys might have had a father/ But our world might not be the same.”
Its poignant lines struck the perfect chord. And the title – simply “Thank You” – resounded back down the years amid the reverent silence of London’s Royal Albert Hall.
It marked the highlight of a moving service attended by Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as well as other senior royals.
PETALS
Birmingham schoolgirl Lucy had written the winning poem in a Royal British Legion contest to honour the 885,000 British troops who died.
Her own great-grandfather George Alfred Attrill was one of the lucky ones. He served in the Royal Navy in both world wars – the second time on a hospital ship – and survived.
Lucy’s spine-tingling verse was only matched in the domed hall by Prince Harry and Meghan’s royal wedding cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason who played Hallelujah while images from the First World War were projected onto gauze screens above him.
Sir Tom Jones, Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Sheridan Smith and The Kingdom Choir also performed, with a finale that saw thousands of poppy petals fall from the roof.
The festival was one of a series of events yesterday on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day.
Earlier, the Duke of Sussex was at Twickenham to lay a wreath ahead of the rugby clash between England and New Zealand.
Harry also met descendants of two England captains Lancelot Slocock and Ronnie Poulton who died in the conflict. Poulton’s great nephew James Garnett said: “It was very emotional.”
Yesterday also saw the end of The Long Walk Home, a four-day challenge in which 100 veterans walked 100 miles from Ypres in Belgium – the scene of three major battles – to the Cenotaph. Among the walkers was 63-year-old Pete Barron, a former Lieutenant Colonel with the Royal Corps of Signals for 38 years, and his stepson Matthew McGinn, 35, who still serves with the RCS.
Pete, of Ludlow, Shrops, carried with him the war medals of his grandfather John Webb who survived the Somme campaign to win a Distinguished Conduct Medal.
And he also had with him a bronze medallion known as the “death penny” given to the family of his Royal Navy great uncle Albert Brown who didn’t make it home.
Pete – who has raised £4,000 for the Haig Housing Trust which provides homes for veterans – said: “I was doing the walk he couldn’t do.”
An estimated 9.7 million military personnel lost their lives in the First World War and 21 million were
wounded. Among them was 40-yearold Private George Edwin Ellison from York – killed by a German sniper just 90 minutes before the Armistice at 11am on November 11, 1918, that ended the four-year conflict.
Yesterday the leaders of France and Germany joined in a show of unity holding hands and resting their heads against each other. President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met in
Compiegne, France, where the Armistice was signed in a railway carriage.
In the UK, silhouettes of soldiers from the First World War were projected on to famous landmarks.
The Tommies illuminated Marble Arch, Tate Modern, HMS Belfast, Warwick Castle, the Angel of the North, the Tyne Bridge, Titanic Belfast,
Cardiff Castle and Edinburgh Castle.
General the Lord Dannatt, patron of There But Not There and ex-Chief of the General Staff, said: “It is vital we reflect on the sacrifice made by an entire generation of servicemen and women. These landmarks provide a remarkable representation of the nation doing that.
“We have been moved by the overwhelming public support which has led to more than £4million raised for military and mental health charities.”
Today’s events will begin at 6am as pipers play the traditional Scottish lament, Battle’s O’er, at 2,000 locations across the world.
Then at 11am Britain will fall silent for two minutes. At 12.30pm church bells will ring.
And in the evening The Last Post will be sounded by more than 1,200 buglers before Beacons of Light are lit from Land’s End to John O’Groats at 7pm, symbolising an end to the darkness of war.
A final ‘Thank You’ to those we must never forget.