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My friend Rorrim Wrigglesworth has built this wonderful Garden of Remembrance, which includes The Cenotaph.
Please do visit it to pay your respects. It is located at RoBeck land in Second Life (click here for SURL)
The Two Minute Silence is at 11:00am 11th Nov 2011 (UK time, which is 3am SLT/PST) and Remembrance Day will be on Sunday 13th Nov this year.
www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/the-nation-remembers/remembrance-sunday
www.bbc.co.uk/news/11734920
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day
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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
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Update: I was at the Garden of Remembrance for the Two Minute Silence, and was very moved that there were 11 other people there at the appointed time (11am UK time).
We were all silent and then just after 11.02am somebody said something appropriate. I added the quote in italics above and someone immediately echoed “We will remember them” (which is the correct and traditional response).
A few more very appropriate things were also said.
It doesn’t sound much, but it was very moving and very special. Possibly the most special thing I have experienced in my 4 years on Second Life.
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below”
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever 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 the rivers, blessed by the 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 a peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
(18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918
Thanks for posting this Becca. It’s very much appreciated by me and also thanks for the brilliant pics that you’ve added to your blog, so much better than mine! If i need any done for my blog I’ll be in touch. 🙂
I’ve just added a blog about the Duke of Edinburgh and the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abby.
Take a look at tomorrows blog when it is posted (I’ve got it ready in draft form and I’ll be posting it before I leave for work at the crack of dawn!)
It’s simple but effective.
It was a pleasure, Ro. Thank you for making such a wonderful build.