For the Fallen
With remembrance Sunday nearly upon us Ascot Care Agency will be marking this year with our attendance to 2 very special services, one at the cenotaph in whithehall and one at Roker beach where Director Danny Boyle will be at the helm of a national Armistice Day project. This is a gesture of remembrance for the men and women who left their home shores during the First World War and the event involves the drawing of a large-scale portrait of a casualty from the First World War, designed by sand artists Sand In Your Eye, which will be washed away as the tide comes in. In addition, Poet Carol Ann Duffy has been invited to write a new poem, which will be read by individuals, families and communities as they gather on beaches on November 11. Copies of the poem will be available at the beaches around the UK for those who wish to come together or to offer their own personal contribution.
We will show our respects our Sunday and will salute all of the armed forces both past and present including our own clients who served our country and who we are proud to care for, our own staff members who currently serve as reservisits or our staff who’s partners serve.
A Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21 September 1914.
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain