Breaking The Hundred Year Rule
It is said that unless you are extremely famous, no one will remember you one hundred years after your death. Today, I set out to disprove that theory. Each year, I buy a new poppy from the Royal British Legion Poppy Shop in readiness for Remembrance Day in November. I have quite a collection now, ranging from bright, little, enamelled lapel pins to bejewelled brooches set with siam red and olivine green stones. However this year, I bought a small, simple pin which was commissioned to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres. My grandfather’s regiment was engaged in the conflict, and although he was invalided out soon after, at least he survived.
It was one of the largest battles of World War I, resulting in devastating losses on both sides. In this one battle alone, 60,083 British soldiers died in fields turned to a quagmire of mud by torrential rain. What lies beneath this figure is the fact that many of those who died were young men who had not even reached the voting age, which was twenty-one at the time. That fact was brought home to me when I unpacked my poppy and found a commemorative certificate alongside it, giving details of a British soldier whose life was lost one hundred years ago during the 103 days of the Battle of Passchendaele. I decided to find out more about ‘Private Tarr’, and easily found him on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site. I knew his service number, his rank and regiment and the location of his memorial, but what my certificate had not told me, was that he was only nineteen at the time of his death.
My sense of loss for this soldier was palpable: I thought of all of the experiences I have enjoyed in the years since my nineteenth birthday and how they were denied to him. He never married, had children or grandchildren, or returned to this peaceful country of ours which, despite its flaws, is still a beautiful place to live . When someone asked me what the poppy cost, my reply was that it was ’priceless’. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to have said that it was, ‘beyond price’.
On 4th October, I will wear my little pin with pride and remember Private Frederick Tarr, even though he was not famous and it will be one hundred years since his death. Find out more about the Passchendaele Poppy here: http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/community/stories/remembrance/creating-the-passchendaele-100-poppy-pin
