Remembrance Sunday

[rjhowie]

There will be paradesd and assemblies all over the country and especially the one at the London Cenotaph with the Royal family and national along with Commonwealth leaders there. Following that will be the parade of 10,000 ex-members of HM Forces. The massive poppy display is also very impressive. Recently i noted an article about the worst rail accident in the country at the imte of the Great War when a train with over 500 troops heading south from Larbert in Stirlingshire for the Front was involved in a collision with another train near dumfries and over 200 killed and many others injured. Two signalmen were later jailed with hard labour having admitted their situation.

Always time to remember and I always wear a poppy.

 

[teddytoot]

Yes this was the Quintinshill disaster on the 22nd May 1915 when 215 officers and men of the 1/7th Royal Scots were killed and 191 injured. There were also 12 civilian deaths and 55 injured. All this through two men failing to do their job properly.

 

[rjhowie]

Those two railwaymen deserved what they got with the then hard labour punishment. How they could live after that horror is another thing. I think the remembrance display at the Tower is tremendous.

 

[Paulsw2]

Interesting postscript to the Quintinshill disaster:

"Meakin and Tinsley were released from prison on 15 December 1916. After release, Tinsley went straight back to working on the Caledonian railway as a lampman. He died in 1967. Meakin also returned to the railway, as a goods train guard. Some years later he was made redundant from that job and set himself up as a coal merchant, trading from Quintinshill siding, right next to the scene of the crash. In the Second World War, he worked in the Gretna munitions factory until he retired due to ill health. He died in 1953."

Sounds like they had more mercy for people who made a mistake then than we have now.

Paul

 

[Matt3985]

Don't worry you guys in the UK are not the only ones that are dedicated to the brave men and women who served all of our countries, My Grandpa served in Korean War... Less we forget the brave souls who both lost or survived any war in this world.

 

[watemple]

My Dad was a major in the US Army, and my grandfather was an airport controller in the Philippines. The military's in my blood! I salute all soldiers, dead or alive.

 

[rjhowie]

The massive display of plastic poppoes around the Tower of London was atremednous thing. Over 880,000 marking th death ofs of both thehome army and soliders from the Empire. It attracted multitudes and all the poppies have been sold for just under £25 each and the proceeds to the British Legion work. It used to be when you bought the standard red poippt for wearing it had a pin as part of the thing then they stopped that and you got a small pin to stick in yourself. This year however, I noticed my local supermarket was selling them with a sticky patch on the back to make it easier!

In the Second World War the railways were ran into the ground in a sense providing for the war effort and by 1948 a ramshackle state. . This tear has been a special time marking the First World War. It was a horrific experience and by 1918 both we and the French were exhausted.