Boxing Day, 1908. In front of the beautiful, Georgian, Henry Holland designed façade of Berrington Hall, surrounded by gardens landscaped by Capability Brown, Sir Frederick Cawley sits astride his hunter, his four sons at his side.
They are masters of all they survey. En-titled, privileged, wealthy, secure. Sir Fred has already made his fortune as a Lancashire mill owner and now sits in the House of Commons - and here he looks upon the fruits of his labours. The world is their oyster. In the background, their mother looks on, with what must be burgeoning pride and satisfaction. Four fine sons at the top of their game.
A month short of ten years later, as the Armistice Treaty is signed, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, three of those sons do not sit astride their equines - they lie buried in the blood and ordure filled battlefield earth of France and the Dardanelles. John, a Hussar died in the first few months of the war, ambushed at dawn while endeavouring to calm his stampeding horses. Harold fell in the disastrous campaign in Gallipoli, and Oswald died at Merville in France, just three months before the war ended.
It is said that their mother never recovered. Neither would any mother, I think. Father expressed his grief as men often do…with rage. Winston Churchill felt the full force of his anger, hushing him only (and probably temporarily) by 'kicking him upstairs' to the House of Lords.
I often hear the comment that 'the politicians should send THEIR sons to do the fighting'…well, this one did. In fact, Sir Fred, himself a Member of Parliament, sent two of those sons as politicians - here is the 'Recording Angel' memorial bearing their names (on Panel 2 and Panel 8) which stands in St Stephen's Porch, Westminster Hall. (There is also a heraldic shield to Oswald behind the Speaker's Chair in the House of Commons).
And so it has been, forever, both before and after the great conflict of World War One, that young men and women from all backgrounds, of all classes, colours and creeds, have gone off to 'do their duty'; to be wounded or die for their country, and for causes which we so easily criticise with the glorious benefit of hindsight and broader information, but causes in which many (if not most) of them believed at the time. How else could they have endured what they did?
However we feel about War and the responsibilities of those in power, let us not take away from these individuals the fact that sacrifice was made at all levels, by all sorts of people (A subaltern's life - many of whom came from public schools, averaged six weeks at The Front) Their deaths and injuries always left (and still leave) not just one tragedy, but the many tragedies of bereaved and traumatised mothers & fathers, parentless children and both selves and families wracked with grief - one emotion which knows no boundaries of any kind.
Whether rich or poor, all of our mortal remains, in the end, occupy the same space. For those left behind, a broken heart cannot be mended by pound notes or privilege…just by the love, support and understanding of others. Perhaps cultivation of that understanding and support is one way, even 100 years later, in which we can help fulfil their 'bright Promise' to change the world that they so wanted to make better for us all?
...Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:
Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,
“Come, what was your record when you drew breath?”
But a big blot has hid each yesterday
So poor, so manifestly incomplete.
And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.
(From 'Such, Such is Death' - Charles Hamilton Sorley)
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