The marking of Remembrance Sunday this year inevitably highlighted the Centenary of the First World War. So much has been written in the last year in books, magazine articles and newspapers that one headline I read said Who will win the Great War of publishing? I have been struck by the worldwide impact of the First World War: for example a million soldiers from India were involved, 62,000 killed, 67,000 wounded and in the summer I was struck by a picture of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton being used as a hospital for wounded Indian soldiers. Our own services reflected the worldwide remembering. We had more ambassadors or diplomatic representatives at the Sunday service than in my time up till now from Britain, France Germany, India, Italy, the Philippines and at theOld Christian Cemetery where there is a War Memorial and several military graves (though not from this conflict) we were honoured by the Bahrain Foreign Minister’s presence. As ever we were delighted to receive a delegation from the Chelsea Pensioners who were here for the week.
Colin Waite, whose friend Private Brian Holroyd had died in 1959, was able to lay a wreath as part of the Remembrance ceremony at the War Memorial and then transfer it to Brian’s grave later. It was good to spend time with Colin later in his week here in Bahrain and taking him out to the Al Areem Wildlife Park. |