When on holiday do you plan your excursions or just let them happen? This morning Mrs Bard and I turned left (rather than yesterday’s right from Wells next the sea), and drove! Our only wish was to next to a war memorial at 11am, on the 11^th day of the 11^th month. Upon finding a deserted memorial in Burnham Market with some time to spare we wondered if we’d be part of a solitary vigil, with the residents at a memorial elsewhere. How pleased I was to be so wrong. We joined many people to remember…

At eleven O’clock
On the eleventh day,
of the eleventh month,

We stood in someone else’s town,
At someone else’s memorial,
Joining in someone else’s service,

And with them,
We remembered.

Some stood,
Around the memorial,
Some stood,
In shop doorways,
Some stood,
At a distance,
But all stood,
In silent memory.

Thank you Burnham Market,
Thank you Rev Graham Hitchins (ex Royal Marine),
We will remember them,
We won’t forget.

…and I remembered my son, lost not in war, but in peacetime but always remembered.

© Baldock Bard 2014
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