Remembering the Festing Four in Flanders Fields
Residents of the road gather round memorial stone
The Festing Road memorial and residents gathered in remembrance
November 11, 2024
On Remembrance Sunday (10 November) the neighbours of Festing Road gathered around the stone laid for the four who left the street in the Great War never to return.
Actress Sally Faulkner read the immortal 1915 poem In Flanders Fields which started the whole Poppy movement.
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.
Sally says, “My father was a bomber pilot who was shot down over Crete and spent four long years as a prisoner of war. This is a moment to remember not only him but all who suffer because of war.”
Business man Mike Styles added, ”My parents a doctor and a nurse met in the War so its memory is something special,”
Lawyer Dora Clark said, ”Remembrance Sunday nearly always falls on the day my mother died when I was eight months pregnant, A time I can never forget,”
All present agreed that experiencing the two minutes silence together made the experience both meaningful and strangely spiritual, “It brings us all closer together” said Viv Knowland.
Elsewhere Hugh Thompson produced a “Dead Man’s Penny” which every family of the fallen were awarded.
“Hardly compensation for losing a husband or son” he said. ”But they were different times and we must never forget.”
Dead Man's Penny
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