Cemetery Preparation for Remembrance Day

Twice this week I have been down to the Old Christian Cemetery to offer a hand to Kumar and Kalam in preparation for the eleventh of the eleventh at 11am, when the top brass from the Military and Ambassadors from several nations will be present.

We were delighted to receive the offer of help from a group of sailors from UKMCC to give a few hours to work alongside our two loyal workers and in particular to tackle a tree that had fallen down in the high winds, so one team set too and sawed and chopped it up into pieces for disposal;others focused on the continuing falling leaves, always a challenge; while a third team cleaned up some of the memorial stones and wooden crosses that the pigeons delight in sitting on or above.

A special visitor to the cemetery on Friday morning, just flown in from the UK, was Colin Waite who came to see the grave of his friend from childhood/teenage years Private Brian Holroyd who died in Aden in 1959 at the age of twenty. The story of Colin and Brian’s friendship is told at length in this week’s Gulf Weekly.Colin will be attending the two Remembrance services in the Cathedral and Old Christian Cemetery and connecting with the Chelsea Pensioners’ programme while they are here in Bahrain. The Bahrain British Business Forum have been very generous in sponsoring Colin’s airfare.