I congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) on a passionate speech, although I disagree that the Government have struck the wrong balance. As we have heard from those on the Government and Opposition Front Benches, a careful balance has been struck in these commemorations.
I join in the tributes to my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for his excellent maiden speech. I met him some time before he became a candidate in Newark, so I looked forward to him coming to Parliament. He struck a good tone in his comments, and I must admit to a twinge of jealously, not at the warm reception that he received in Parliament, but because he was talking about fighting to improve his rail services, and his are more than twice the distance from London that mine in Worcester are, but the journey takes about half the time. I look forward to working with him to promote the interests of business and fight for fairer funding for schools in both our counties.
It is truly an honour to speak in a debate on such a significant commemoration, and on an event that has been variously described as a catastrophe, the great war, and, for some years, the war to end all wars; as so many people have said, that sadly turned out not to be the case. The commemorations of the centenary will cover a sequence of events that profoundly changed our nation, each of our constituencies, and the world. As constituency MPs, almost all of us will take part in Remembrance Sunday services, and for me, it is one of the proudest but most humbling moments to take my place each year in Worcester cathedral for the moving service of remembrance. In recent years, those services have attracted ever larger crowds, and those at the Cenotaph service outside the cathedral now dwarf the packed congregation inside. Later I will touch on some of the local aspects of commemoration that will take place in Worcester, and my recent visit to Commonwealth war graves in Worcester.
First, however, I will focus on one of the most positive aspects of commemoration, which is the way it can bring communities together, heal the wounds of the
past, and remind us of the things that unite us, rather than those that divide us. The Minister touched on the importance of the commemorations to Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Republic, and the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) made an excellent speech on those issues. As Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Northern Ireland Office and someone who attended my first British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly earlier this year, that point has been impressed on me very clearly.
It is truly remarkable that last year the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland stood alongside the First Minister and the Taoiseach for a service of remembrance at Enniskillen, and the Minister of State joined Ministers of the Republic of Ireland in laying wreaths at both Glasnevin and Islandbridge. It is perhaps more remarkable still that last year’s Remembrance Sunday service in Belfast was attended by the Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of that city—the first time in which that party has formally taken part in the event.
Those steps toward reconciliation are welcome, and I commend not only the excellent speech of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley, but his work in bringing the exhibition “Fields of Battle—Lands of Peace” to Parliament; it echoes the theme of reconciliation through remembrance.
It was good to see Her Majesty the Queen on her visit this week to Northern Ireland laying a wreath at Coleraine and launching the programme for the Royal British Legion’s commemorations in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. I am glad that that programme also includes the service at St Anne’s cathedral in Belfast and the Woodland Trust work in County Londonderry. It is especially appropriate that the programme of commemorations has funded the extensive restoration of HMS Caroline, which, as Lord Trimble said yesterday, is the last surviving veteran of the battle of Jutland.
It is welcome that the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly is planning on holding its next plenary in Ashford, so that Members from the Dáil, this Parliament, and all the other Parliaments represented in that body can travel to the first world war battlefields, pay tribute at the Island of Ireland peace park, and read the pledge inscribed on a pillar in that park. If the House will excuse me, I think it is worth while reading into the record the wording of that pledge:
“From the crest of this ridge, which was the scene of terrific carnage in the First World War on which we have built a peace park and Round Tower to commemorate the thousands of young men from all parts of Ireland who fought a common enemy, defended democracy and the rights of all nations, whose graves are in shockingly uncountable numbers and those who have no graves, we condemn war and the futility of war. We repudiate and denounce violence, aggression, intimidation, threats and unfriendly behaviour.
As Protestants and Catholics, we apologise for the terrible deeds we have done to each other and ask forgiveness. From this sacred shrine of remembrance, where soldiers of all nationalities, creeds and political allegiances were united in death, we appeal to all people in Ireland to help build a peaceful and tolerant society. Let us remember the solidarity and trust that developed between Protestant and Catholic soldiers when they served together in these trenches.
As we jointly thank the Armistice of 11 November 1918, when the guns fell silent along this western front—we affirm that a fitting tribute to the principles for which men and women from the Island of Ireland died in both World Wars would be permanent peace.”
Amen to that.
I would like to return to matters closer to home, and in particular to my constituency of Worcester. Alongside the privilege of attending each year’s Remembrance Sunday service, I have also been honoured to go each year as MP to the city’s Gheluvelt park and attend the commemorations that take place there of a battle that may sound unfamiliar to many in this House, but which is firmly inscribed in the honours list of the Worcestershire Regiment.
31 October will mark the 100th anniversary of the battle of Gheluvelt, part of the first battle of Ypres in 1914, in which the 2nd Battalion the Worcestershire Regiment advanced against overwhelming odds and, despite other forces retreating all around them, stopped the Germans’ advance and thwarted their attempt to break through the lines. That intervention was crucial. The cost of the attack was terrible: in a single day, the battalion lost 187 men, including three officers. Field Marshal Sir Claud Jacob said of the action:
“Let it never be forgotten that the true glory of the fight at Gheluvelt lies not in the success achieved but in the courage which urged our solitary battalion to advance undaunted amid all the evidence of retreat and disaster to meet great odds in a battle apparently lost”.
To this day, one of the finest parks in Worcester commemorates that action. I will be there this October, along with the Royal British Legion, Worcestershire’s regimental association, the Mercian Regiment and other units that fought alongside it. The commemorations of the bravery of the Worcesters on that day will rightly be balanced with remembrance of the tragic loss of life.
Growing up in a small village in rural Worcestershire, I was struck by the fact that the only names on our little war memorial in Abbots Morton were not from big battles such as Ypres or the Somme, but from somewhere that, as a child, I would have found difficult to find on a map—Mesopotamia. It is worth remembering, as so much focus is on the western front, the wider scope of the great war, and the fact that thousands of British and imperial soldiers and sailors fought, suffered and died in far off places such as Iraq, Gallipoli, Salonika—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) pointed out—Tanzania and the south Atlantic.
For much of the great war, the Worcestershire Yeomanry were deployed, as were the Glamorgan Yeomanry, which the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) mentioned, in what we now call the middle east, fighting the Ottoman empire. For all that most people of my generation have seen “Lawrence of Arabia”, it is important that we should not allow the further-flung elements of the war to be forgotten. I am pleased that the Worcestershire regimental museum contains displays about the war in the desert. In these days when we closely follow such worrying news from that part of the world, we should remember the role that Britain played in shaping the modern middle east, understand that interventions did not start in 2003, and bring a greater historical appreciation to our understanding of the region. We should also remember that alongside the more recent sacrifices that our armed forces have made in Iraq there were previous generations who fought, sweated, suffered and died in that land.
One Worcestershire hero who fought the Ottomans was Private Fred Dancox, who went on to become the city’s one and only Victoria Cross winner. Little is
known about his life before the war, but he fought at Gallipoli and, having survived the horrors of that brutal battle, he earned eternal fame by his actions back on the western front at the third battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele. His citation for the Victoria Cross reads:
“For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty in attack…this man entered the ‘Pillbox’ from the rear, threatening the garrison with a Mills bomb. Shortly afterwards he reappeared with a machine gun under his arm, followed by about 40 enemy. The machine gun was brought back to our position by Private Dancox, and he kept it in action all day. By his resolution, absolute disregard of danger and cheerful disposition, the morale of his comrades was maintained at a very high standard under extremely trying circumstances.”
That citation was published in the London Gazette on 23 November 1917. At that time, Private Dancox had been granted leave to return home to Worcester. A civic reception was prepared, and the story goes that the mayor and council were even waiting at the station to meet him. Tragically, he was never to arrive. On 30 November 1917, Private Dancox VC was killed in action. A few years ago, I attended the unveiling of a plaque to the memory of Fred Dancox, and it is appropriate that our new TA centre in Worcester has been named in his honour.
The programme of commemorations in Worcester will include the 150th anniversary of our Territorial Army unit, 214 Battery Royal Artillery, based at Dancox house, which also played its part in the great war, and on 16 August Worcester will witness a military parade to celebrate that milestone. We will also celebrate the life and achievements of one of the city’s most famous sons, the Reverend Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, better known as Woodbine Willie. This pastor served with distinction as a forces chaplain and brought comfort to the troops over a number of years, doling out cigarettes in a way that may be frowned on today but was clearly much appreciated by the soldiers of the day. Although he joined up with conviction to serve his country, his experiences at the front convinced him of the futility of war, and in its aftermath he became a passionate pacifist and Christian socialist. His legacy is well remembered in Worcester, and it is right that the programme includes exhibitions on his life and work, as well as a service at our cathedral in his memory.
Another Worcester character who will be remembered is Vesta Tilley, who became known as “Britain’s best recruiting sergeant”. This locally born music hall actress used her controversial performances, dressed as a soldier or sailor and singing songs such as “The Army of Today’s All Right” and “Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Soldier”, to drum up recruits, and sometimes enrolled volunteers during her performances. I was recently very moved to hear, as part of the BBC’s excellent commemorative work, a recording of a war widow whose husband was recruited from under her nose at one of these performances. An exhibition about Vesta Tilley’s life and work starts this month and will run into September at the Commandery.
Today at the Commandery, which hosted Charles I’s headquarters at the battle of Worcester, the door is being opened to the Worcester public so that they can bring their war stories, photographs and memorabilia, in order to make sure that they are included in the
county’s major project, Worcestershire World War One Hundred, one of the most significant Heritage Lottery Fund funded programmes outside London.
The vibrant arts and cultural scene in Worcester is also playing its part. Last Friday at our Guildhall, under Woodbine Willie’s portrait, I attended the launch of the Worcestershire literary festival and heard excellent poems on the theme of “a prelude to war”. This year’s Three Choirs festival will host a performance of Britten’s “War Requiem”, talks on how the war influenced Edward Elgar, and a specially commissioned piece by the German composer Torsten Rasch that is to be called “A foreign field”. Our museums will be hosting special exhibitions, and our schools will be running projects to research local history related to the great war.
I join my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) in congratulating the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on the work it is doing to promote understanding and visits to the war graves in our city.
My generation is perhaps the last that will have had any living contact with the generation that remembered the great war. I recall my grandmother on my father’s side telling me what it felt like to be bombed by a zeppelin in east London, and my mother talking about how, in the 1960s, her grandfather still felt the effects of having been gassed. The passing of the years and the generations should not stand in the way of our understanding or our remembering the heroism and the sacrifice, the triumphs and the tragedies, and the long-term consequences of the first world war. I congratulate the Minister and the shadow Front Benchers on setting out such a fitting and appropriate programme of commemorations, and I am proud that Worcester will be playing its part.
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