(This blog is taken from a recent talk in Chapel given by Mr Rothwell, Senior Master). I would like to add my thanks to the UVI girls for the excellent Remembrance Service on the evening of Sunday, 8th November. Remembrance is a subject about which I don’t think anyone has the right to tell anyone else what they should or should not feel – least of all me. But what I can give you is a sort of personal patchwork of my thoughts and experiences.
What I talk about will be mostly military – but remembrance is not just about those who fought – it is about all those who gave their lives in the cause – usually that of freedom.
I grew up in the 1970s in a very different era when British armed forces had not actually been at war for over 20 years. Where I was at school there was a CCF (Combined Cadet Force) which provided a sort of introduction to military matters. People like me were expected to join. I (and my best friend) chose not to – it just didn’t seem relevant. We heard that the Headmaster was suggesting that he was proposing to see us to talk to us about this: fortunately, he turned out to be too busy or to have better things to do! Looking back, my perspective then was possibly rather strange: I was fully aware that one of my grandfathers had been a Commander in the Royal Navy and had died in active service in the Second World War; my father served in the army in North Africa and Italy, although he almost never talked about it. As I grew up, the picture gradually changed and so did my view of things.
The absolutely key moment for me was the Falklands War – April to June 1982. This was a seemingly bizarre but important conflict which saw the UK mobilise a huge force to regain from Argentina possession of some remote islands 8,000 miles away in the South Atlantic (inhabited by fewer than 2,000 people). The war occurred coincidentally when I was revising for my final exams at Oxford. I have never been quite so riveted by any other single event in my life. Each evening I found watching the evening’s news about what were the gripping events of the unfolding war an utterly helpful distraction from the necessary process of revision. My views about the military and their contribution to things began to develop quite significantly.
Six months after the end of the war, on New Year’s Day 1983, I happened to be at a party which was also attended by two Company Commanders of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment. These men had fought and led their men in one of the key and toughest battles in the Falklands (at Goose Green); they told me quite bluntly that they were very lucky to be alive and present at the party. This put my simple life into a rather different perspective.
In what is now my lengthy teaching career I have been privileged to teach a significant number of sons and daughters of military personnel and my regard for the armed forces and what they do has been greatly enhanced by this experience. I would say the same too of the several members of the various teaching staff with whom I have worked – a number of whom have been former members of the armed forces. In the middle of my career, I was the Housemaster of House at Marlborough, a House of 60 boys. Each year at this time I would remind the present membership that in the First World War no fewer than 73 young men, who had all been members of that same House, had been killed in action. The fact that young men, not much older than themselves, more in number than those currently in the room at the time, had paid the ultimate price was something with which it was not difficult to identify. It was – and remains for me – a sobering thought.
In a completely different sphere both my London Livery Companies have very significant affiliations with various units of the armed forces. They support them in all manner of ways – not least financially. In a couple of years’ time I shall find myself chairing a committee of one of those Livery Companies. This committee oversees the allocation of substantial charitable funds and gives particularly to units of the armed forces. From where I stand now this is a duty which I shall regard as a considerable privilege and take very seriously indeed.
Finally, although I am a classicist, I spend a good deal of my spare time reading about the history of the 20th Century. It is impossible to do this without coming to appreciate better, through historical perspective, the contribution made by all manner of people, but especially the military: quite simply to enable us to enjoy the freedoms which we, in the civilised world, do today. So, whatever you feel about remembrance, and its importance for you or not, I suppose that one of the things I am telling you this morning is that it is possible (and permissible) to change your mind. I certainly have. I have achieved through various experiences – a different, dare I say, better perspective. What I understand more clearly now is the enormous respect and the huge sense gratitude which I feel is owed to those who came before us.
That is why we remember them. For our tomorrow, they gave their today.