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Remembering the sacrifices of war in Normandy
Living in France brings one resident closer to where her father fought in 1944
Everywhere you travel in Normandy, there are reminders of what happened here in 1944.
The many museums and the black images placed along the coastline and across the Channel this year offer a poignant reminder of the horrors that took place here before most of us were born.
Living here has been significant for me as I discover the lanes and villages my father travelled through as he took part in the thwarted efforts of the 24th Lancers to reach Villers-Bocage in June that year.
The history of that regiment is told in the book None Had Lances by Leonard Willis.
I see the many local graves bearing the emblem of that regiment and wonder whether those buried there were among the friends my dad made as they waited for orders to cross the Channel.
Many of those men came from ordinary office jobs they had only recently started in the City of London. Fighting would have been the last thing they expected to do in the years after leaving school.
Yet, like so many others, my father never spoke about that time. So much vivid tragedy lived on in the memories of those men and women, but was never verbalised. Then, as now, the suffering caused by war was too horrific to describe.
Remembrance Day gives us the opportunity to reflect on the human cost of warfare and pray for peace. Many of us will watch the Festival of Remembrance on Saturday, November 7, and the commemoration at the Cenotaph the following day.
Here in Normandy, there is the chance to join our French neighbours on Armistice Day at the war memorials in towns and villages that saw so much fighting. It is also an opportunity to think about and pray for those caught up in wars in Europe and elsewhere today.
If you live in the Manche and would like to attend an in-person, English-speaking service on Remembrance Sunday, November 8, there are three opportunities:
10:30 at the chapel at Hommeel, near Coutances
16:00 at the crypt chapel of the Village du Mont Carmel, Avranches
17:00 at the Baptist church in Cherbourg
You can also find English-speaking Remembrance services across France on A Church Near You.
We will remember them.
