All our Families were affected by the Great War
Tuesday Club meeting – 5 August 2014 [2.30-4.00]
People woke up on 5 August 1914 to learn that Britain [and its Empire] had declared war on Germany late in the previous evening. Although people knew about the military and naval build-up in Europe, and even though they knew about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand a Sarajevo a few weeks earlier, war was an unexpected outcome for most people.
The war that followed was a tragic outcome of failed diplomacy amidst national and international rivalry; and it was tragic for people across Europe and much further afield, with an enormous death toll – in more than just ‘Flanders Field’ – and with enormous economic consequences and damage.
There can be few families in Britain that were unaffected by the Great War – a war which someone recently has dubbed a ‘European Civil War’. That will be just as true for our congregation as any other community.
Unusually our Tuesday Club will meet on 5 August at 2.30pm in the Church Hall to commemorate this momentous occurrence. We do not seek to celebrate but to remember.
You are invited to bring your families’ memories to this reflective occasion. Some may bring paper records of casualties or photographs, diaries, letters, artefacts or treasured family mementoes; and some may bring oral traditions. We hope that you will be prepared to speak about what you have brought.
This occasion might become a muddle, with so many stories – much like the start of the War itself – but we will know that our purpose is to remember and reflect.
There will be refreshments as usual and we will aim to finish by 4.00pm as usual, with this occasion being brought to a close by a short moment of prayer led by Simon Baker.
The war that followed was a tragic outcome of failed diplomacy amidst national and international rivalry; and it was tragic for people across Europe and much further afield, with an enormous death toll – in more than just ‘Flanders Field’ – and with enormous economic consequences and damage.
There can be few families in Britain that were unaffected by the Great War – a war which someone recently has dubbed a ‘European Civil War’. That will be just as true for our congregation as any other community.
Unusually our Tuesday Club will meet on 5 August at 2.30pm in the Church Hall to commemorate this momentous occurrence. We do not seek to celebrate but to remember.
You are invited to bring your families’ memories to this reflective occasion. Some may bring paper records of casualties or photographs, diaries, letters, artefacts or treasured family mementoes; and some may bring oral traditions. We hope that you will be prepared to speak about what you have brought.
This occasion might become a muddle, with so many stories – much like the start of the War itself – but we will know that our purpose is to remember and reflect.
There will be refreshments as usual and we will aim to finish by 4.00pm as usual, with this occasion being brought to a close by a short moment of prayer led by Simon Baker.