I got up early today for the first time in… ages, to grumpily go somewhere I didn’t want to go. That mood quickly changed when I found out it was the National Memorial Arboretum (for those who don’t know, while I disagree with war, I have the utmost respect for those who give life and limb to fight for what they believe in), and I relented into going on the half hour journey to get there.
When I got there, I was bemused by the amount of people there – there were, easily, a couple thousand, which given the weather (foggy, damp, and generally miserable) surprised me. As we went around the site, I realised that this wasn’t just a war memorial, it was a site of remembrance. The first ‘exhibit’ we came across, for lack of a better word, wasn’t to do with fighting at all – it was a rock garden dedicated to stillborn and neonatal deaths. There were hundreds of rocks in the garden, and, for the first time in a long time, I paused to take it in. The number of babies that die before they leave the hospital is phenomenal, and I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for the hundreds of mothers to lose their child. One thing I am confident of, however, is that if any of those mothers were asked, they would recall exactly where they placed their stone.
A little more wandering around took us past the Civil Defence and Bevin Boys monuments (for those who don’t know, Bevin Boys were volunteers and conscripts who worked in the pits to produce coal to power the war effort), on the way to the larger monument at the top of some stairs. On the way, we passed an RAF monument, where I had to pause for a moment and pay my respects – a single rose lay on the display, a final gift to one of the men who’d perished in the line of duty. The most recent plaque laid down is only a few months old.
Eventually we arrived at the largest monument – a list of every member of the Army, Air Force and Royal Navy to die since World War 2. The number of names staggered me – there was easily at least 30,000 names. In 1951 alone, 1,238 people gave their lives. Looking around, the most recently engraved names on the wall were labelled 2010, and were at the start of a new wall- and with that came the grim realisation that come the end of the year, far too many names will be added under “2011″. And there’s room for another 10,000 names – they clearly expect many, many more casualties in the future.
Along the side of one wall, as well as the wall towards the centre on that side, there’s a gap, leaving a large statue of a poppy wreathe visible from the outside. Some engraved writing was between the gap which read:
“On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a ray of sunlight falls through this gap” (I can’t remember word for word, but this is similar to what it says). At this point, I began to realise the sheer amount of effort that had gone into the memorial -the statues around were perfect and lifelike, and the work that must have gone into it is phenomenal. It’s free to enter, but people have the option of donating. I entered with a full wallet.
I left with an empty one.
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