Report from the Chair on Remembrance Day 2024

It was my pleasure to represent the Civic Society in St Ives’ Remembrance service again this year. It is a day of nostalgia, sorrow, pride and hope and I think the town marks it very well. For us all, there is some personal resonance, someone who served in one, or even both the wars, or others who worked just as tirelessly to support them behind the scenes.

For me, it is three people: my grandfather who was discharged from the army at just 23, having lost a leg in WWII, my mother-in-law who was a cheery land army girl who drove trucks and tractors in Scotland and, more recently one of my sons-in-law who fought in Afghanistan. The event draws so many people into the town centre it buzzes with energy. Young and old they come to share the collective respect shown to the fallen, and the survivors, of so many battles. We were lucky with the weather, which was a cool dry autumn day, not too harsh for those in uniforms and without topcoats.

Several times the service brought a lump to my throat: the notes of The Last Post, the cadets reading out the names of the fallen, the Iman chanting the Call to Prayer which is so memorably captured by Karl Jenkins in his mass: The Armed Man; the march past of veterans and current members of the armed forces and police, cadets and even nursery children, too young to really understand. It brings us together in different ways: I learned about some of the veterans and met some new faces and caught up with others I hadn’t seen in a while. It was memorable day!