Marks and Spencer insult war dead

[Buzzer]

We had a supply teacher at Durrington High in the 80s who used to tell some corking war stories...nearly getting imprisoned for sending butter to a German relative, another was being shot down in the desert and only having a can of beer to drink but having to roll it across the sand because it was too hot to pick up. Even then we knew they were nonsense, I'm not even sure he was even born before 1939 but he could tell a tale. There might even have been one involving fighting a tiger armed with just a broom (he had the broom, not the tiger).

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

not far off the mark. but we need to remember for many many people even now this is personal and not an exercise in orchestrated patriotism. you only have to drive through the middle of the smallest English village to see how many people have been affected still within living memory. we have to be careful not to allow that to be hijacked by empty posturing. one of the great things about remembrance sunday is the solemnity and the dignity afforded to remembering ordinary ordinary people who died in extraordinary circumstances. not turning it into an I Am Better Than You contest.

Some excellent points here.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

All well and good, my Grandad was exactly the same, but there's a world of difference between not talking about one's war experiences and feeling uncomfortable seeing non-combatants commemorating and giving thanks to those who died fighting for everyone's freedom, which was what you wrote.

I think my dad's defining experience of people who died in war was the death of his mother's brother in WW1 - which wasn't a death that anyone could "give thanks" for.

Stoker First Class Alfred Harrison was one of 738 members of the crew of HMS Bulwark who were killed at Sheerness on 26 November 1914, when the ship was destroyed not by enemy action, but by a massive unexpected explosion. This is the wikipedia account:-

The destruction of the Bulwark

A powerful internal explosion ripped the Bulwark apart at 7.50am on 26 November 1914 while she was moored at Number 17 buoy in Kethole Reach, four miles (6 km) west of Sheerness in the estuary of the River Medway. Out of her complement of 750, only 14 sailors survived. Two of these men subsequently died of their injuries in hospital, and almost all of the remaining survivors were seriously injured.

The only men to survive the explosion comparatively unscathed were those who had been in Number 1 messdeck amidships, who were blown out of an open hatch. One of these men, Able Seaman Stephen Marshall, described feeling the sensation of "a colossal draught", being drawn "irresistibly upwards", and, as he rose in the air, clearly seeing the ship's masts shaking violently.

Witnesses on Implacable, the next ship in line at the mooring, reported that "a huge pillar of black cloud belched upwards... From the depths of this writhing column flames appeared running down to sea level. The appearance of this dreadful phenomenon was followed by a thunderous roar. Then came a series of lesser detonations, and finally one vast explosion that shook the Implacable from mastheads to keel."

The destruction of the Bulwark was also witnessed on board the battleship Formidable, where "when the dust and wreckage had finally settled a limp object was seen hanging from the wireless aerials upon which it had fallen. With difficulty the object was retrieved and found to be an officer's uniform jacket with three gold bands on the sleeves and between them the purple cloth of an engineer officer. The garment's former owner had been blasted into fragments."

Perhaps the most detailed descriptions of the disaster came from witnesses on board the Prince of Wales and Agamemnon, both of whom stated that smoke issued from the stern of the ship prior to the explosion and that the first explosion appeared to take place in an after magazine.

A naval court of enquiry into the causes of the explosion, held on 28 November 1914, established that it had been the practice to store ammunition for the Bulwark's six-inch (152 mm) guns in cross-passageways connecting her total of 11 magazines. It suggested that, contrary to regulations, 275 six-inch shells had been placed closed together, most touching each other, and some touching the walls of the magazine, on the morning of the explosion.

The most likely cause of the disaster appears to have been overheating of cordite charges stored alongside a boiler room bulkhead, and this was the explanation accepted by the court of enquiry. It has also been suggested that damage caused to a single one of the shells stored in battleship's cross-passageways may have weakened the fusing mechanism and caused the shell to become 'live'. A blow to the shell, caused by it being dropped point down, could then have set off a chain reaction of explosions among the shells stored in the Bulwark's cross-passageways sufficient to detonate the ship's magazines.

On 29 November, divers sent to find the wreck reported that the ship's port bow as far aft as the sick bay had been blown off by the explosion and lay 50 feet (15 m) east of the mooring. The starboard bow lay 30 feet (9 m) further away. The remainder of the ship had been torn apart so violently that no other large portions of the wreck could be found.

The wrecksite is designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act.

In terms of loss of life, the explosion on HMS Bulwark remains the second most catastrophic in the history of the UK. The most deadly explosion in British history was that of Vanguard, caused by a stokehold fire detonating a magazine, at Scapa Flow in 1917.


I can understand how this event isn't one to "give thanks" for.

 

[00snook]

My brother lives in Feltham Middlesex and the school that his granddaughter goes to have banned Christmas parties and nativity plays etc because it upsets the non Christians, Sikhs Hindus and Muslims, whose children attend the same school, that is indisputable fact.

Quite right too.

We are multi cultural.

If you want you granddaughter being brought up with religious mumbo jumbo shoved down her throat send her to a faith school. There are plenty of those around.

Keep education secular.

 

[Buzzer]

Lord B - It seems you are saying that he didn't want people who hadn't experienced the horror of war to remember the dead and this was defined by an event he himself hadn't experienced.

 

[BLOCK F]

Well, they can be insulted... but they won't take offence.

In any case, we are living within the era of 21st century gesture politics - where every little wink, shake of hand, minute's silence is examined in microscopic detail for signs of disrespect. Not sure those of WWI and WWiI would necessarily have shared the same sensibilities around being offended as our current popular culture.

This.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Lord B - It seems you are saying that he didn't want people who hadn't experienced the horror of war to remember the dead and this was defined by an event he himself hadn't experienced.

I didn't say that. I said that he was never very comfortable about non-combatants making a big deal of "remembering" events that they hadn't themselves experienced. What he experienced about the loss of HMS Bulwark wasn't the event, it was the lifelong grieving of his mother who lost her brother.

 

[Buzzer]

He had a defining moment with an incident he didn't experience though. I find his conclusion a strange one given the circumstances leading to it.

And what do you define as a big deal about remembering? It doesn't get any bigger than Remembrance Sunday. Given that it's organised by ex-combatants specifically for all the country to give thanks I'd say your father's view not to feel comfortable with this is not and never was the majority view from ex-servicemen and women.

 

[The Spanish]

I didn't say that. I said that he was never very comfortable about non-combatants making a big deal of "remembering" events that they hadn't themselves experienced. What he experienced about the loss of HMS Bulwark wasn't the event, it was the lifelong grieving of his mother who lost her brother.

they are not remembering events they are remembering people. Thats how I was bought up to understand it and thought that applied to most people. Most families in the UK have been affected by war and lost people. This is your family and I dont want to pick holes in their views but LB - how did he feel about his grieving mother - I always thought that remembrance was for these people anyway, and that was the purpose behind it, to ensure the people were remembered, not the battles.

I always understood it that it was conceived precisely for these people after WW1, in an era when the 'little' people would not have usually warranted such a memorial, but the sacrifice was so great that it had to be acknowledged on a national scale for those left behind.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

they are not remembering events they are remembering people. Thats how I was bought up to understand it and thought that applied to most people. Most families in the UK have been affected by war and lost people. This is your family and I dont want to pick holes in their views but LB - how did he feel about his grieving mother - I always thought that remembrance was for these people anyway, and that was the purpose behind it, to ensure the people were remembered, not the battles.

I always understood it that it was conceived precisely for these people after WW1, in an era when the 'little' people would not have usually warranted such a memorial, but the sacrifice was so great that it had to be acknowledged on a national scale for those left behind.

I guess the little people in my family saw Remembrance Day services more as parades organised by the big guys who had led the little people to their deaths. I could tell you the tale of how my other grandmother's brother died at the Battle of the Somme in a futile attempt to get the Durham Light Infantry to capture an ancient monument that had no strategic importance whatsoever.

 

[Buzzer]

As an aside, just how big is your family tree, Lord B? It's got more branches than WH Smith.

 

[Norman Potting]

I went to an afternoon service yesterday as the younger Pottings were involved, one carrying a flag.

In the Church afterwards youngest P asked if we had lost any relatives during the War. I was able to tell her that my Grandfather, who lied about his age to join up in WW1, got a bullet in his shoulder (he always maintained that it was a British one, he also claimed that he would have been given a VC for some unspecified act, but no one saw him do it!). His dad also served and was fortunate to survive unscathed the sinking of the HMS Hythe off Gallipolli - one could argue that if the ship had not sunk more of those on it would had died in the ensuing debacle there. In a strange way we were perhaps giving thanks we didn't have any relatives who died, we may not have been there if we had.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

As an aside, just how big is your family tree, Lord B? It's got more branches than WH Smith.

I've got over 5,000 names in the tree. Many of them no more than relatives by marriage of relatives by marriage, though.

 

[Buzzer]

I've got over 5,000 names in the tree. Many of them no more than relatives by marriage of relatives by marriage, though.

Crikey. I know about 10 names on mine.

I don't see any need by the way, to recount how futile the objective in which your ancestor sadly died. I think most schoolchildren will tell you that all of the First World War was an unnecessary and bloody mess. And that, I guess, is the best tribute to the little people to be remembered as lions led by donkeys.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Well this is bollocks. I work there, music stopped, no transactions took place, and I didn't hear a single sound in that two minutes.

Isn't this the most pertinent post of this thread? Why did the OP feel the need to start the thread in the first place?

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Crikey. I know about 10 names on mine.

I don't see any need by the way, to recount how futile the objective in which your ancestor sadly died. I think most schoolchildren will tell you that all of the First World War was an unnecessary and bloody mess. And that, I guess, is the best tribute to the little people to be remembered as lions led by donkeys.

Indeed

A war hasnt been fought this badly since olaf the hairy, high king of all he vikings ordered 100,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.

And a gargantuan effort to move Field Marshall Haigs drinks cabinet six inches closer to berlin.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Indeed

A war hasnt been fought this badly since olaf the hairy, high king of all he vikings ordered 100,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.

And a gargantuan effort to move Field Marshall Haigs drinks cabinet six inches closer to berlin.

Permission to shout "bravo!" at an annoyingly loud volume, sir!

 

[Frutos]

Permission to shout "bravo!" at an annoyingly loud volume, sir!

Permission granted.

Wibble.

 

[krakatoa]

Well this is bollocks. I work there, music stopped, no transactions took place, and I didn't hear a single sound in that two minutes.

I was in the cafe, using some free coffee vouchers we had, and I can assure you that the music continued playing (James Morrison I believe). The four of us there were amazed that for the entire two minutes, not one member of staff thought to turn it off.

 

[Nibble]

Well I attended the OS remembrance service and there were plenty of old boys and girls with their medals and seemed to be throughly engaged in the ceremony and I thoroughly enjoyed talking with them. I suppose people deal with it differently. My Grandfather rarely spoke of his war experiences but regularly held the services of remembrance (He was a clergyman in Belfast) so I suppose the two can go together.