Festival of Remembrance

Discussion in 'The Lounge Bar' started by phylo_roadking, Nov 8, 2008.

  1. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Very Senior Member

    Is anyone else watching this tonight on the BBC?

    Normally it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to fault this programme and event - but not tonight...

    When did we all move to live in the US???

    This is a strictly personal opinion - but I think the event could do without the operatic tenors...

    And the whole flavour has changed; the percentage of Remembrance has shrunk to almost zero - under the barrel-thumping for the present "war".

    There is a way to handle this - and it is not how it has been done tonight. The last 40+ years that *I* can remember suited the tone and the events perfectly. "Sexing up" the event was wholly unnecessary, and undignified.

    Note - this is as I said a strictly personal opinion.

    I know we were lied about going into the present unpleasantness in the Middle East, but I find that the theatrics tonight are adding insult to injury.
     
  2. Paul Reed

    Paul Reed Ubique

    I suppose that given the recent high level of casualties, it is not surprising Iraq and Afghanistan has featured highly. Personally I have no problem with that; those boys need to know people back remember them, as much as they remember all those who have gone before.
     
    Drew5233 likes this.
  3. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Bit harsh there mate, arguably Iraq was a lie but Afganistan wasn't.

    However set that aside its not about the wars its about the chaps that have never come home and quite a few haven't in recent times.

    I understand your views on it being a bit 'sexy' but maybe this is to appeal to a younger generation- after all they are the future and when we have all gone who will be left to remember if we don't encourage the youth of today to do just that?

    As for the Opera...I'm no fan of Opera or Kathereen Jenkins, she was never my forces sweet heart.

    Like you mate just my opinion :)
     
  4. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Very Senior Member

    I fully agree - though at the same time not agreeing with the war.

    But there are "ways and means" - and tonight was not quite how to do it.

    Once the "service" section of the event, after the Muster, began - it recovered some gravitas
     
  5. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Very Senior Member

    P.S. no, Afgahnistan WAS different - the British Army was requested to go in by the Americans when they were needed in Iraq! Starting last Tuesday, the Americans can deal now with the issues of why they were in either....

    However set that aside its not about the wars its about the chaps that have never come home and quite a few haven't in recent times.



    Yes, and IIRC it took them some 10-12 years to acknowledge the Army's losses in Northern Ireland, and the UDR, in the Festival...
     
  6. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    P.S. no, Afgahnistan WAS different - the British Army was requested to go in by the Americans when they were needed in Iraq!

    Afghanistan was invaded in 2001/2002. I was in Kosovo when it happened and was part of a convoy that took 45 snatch wagons from Kosovo to Greece to be shipped out to Afganistan for British troops.

    My point being they weren't needed for Iraq because it wasn't invaded until 2003.
     
  7. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Chaps,
    If anyone wants to combine a debate about the political rights and wrongs of Iraq/Afghanistan with comments on the festival of remembrance's style - this isn't the place.

    Cheers,
    Adam.
     
  8. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Very Senior Member

    I was thinking principally of the operations in Helmand province, which was announced on Jan 27th 2006 as a continuation of Operation Herrick. Your bit would have been the initial Operation Veritas?, but from late 2002 (after the bulk of the troops involved in veritas were withdrawn) to February 2006 there was only a small presence in the country IIRC, the 300 or so men training the new Afghan National Army at Kabul under Operation Herrick, later scaled up to battalion size along with the detachments in in Mazari Sharif and Maymana
     
  9. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Very Senior Member

    Adam, not at all. Just how tonight's events were conducted.

    I've since been talking to my mother, who recalls events during the Korean War. Even with a "current" war on hands at that time, the Remembrance events were handled with the gravitas we all remember over the years. She was quite suprised by tonight.

    My P7 teacher many moons ago had been a Wren just after the war, and she was in the Muster once. Her memories of the event tallied thirty years later with what we were seeing as children on the telly.
     
  10. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Very Senior Member

    Just had a thought...

    Tomorrow morning will be different, of course - but weren't the Gurkhas usually represented at the Festival of Remembrance???
     
  11. James S

    James S Very Senior Member

    No doubt as many of us do I watch the event every year without fail and how things are done change.
    I felt very humbled when hearing the young service men and women talking about their experiences and for me it was very much about them and the friends they have lost and seen injured.
    The youngman who quite deservedly was awarded the George Cross and the lady who had lost her son ( along with her daughter) I simply found their words very moving - they put the real cost of any war into context.
     
    Paul Reed likes this.
  12. Peter Clare

    Peter Clare Very Senior Member

    The Festival of Remembrance is not about politics, it is about the people who went to war and never returned. My father being one of them in 1942. I found it a very moving service.
     
    von Poop likes this.
  13. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Very Senior Member

    The Festival of Remembrance is not about politics


    Exactly my point. Tonight, for a time, was on the edge of being so :( The Festival should be like the wreath-laying at the Cenotaph - timeless. So that those being remembered never do grow old.
     
  14. Gage

    Gage The Battle of Barking Creek

    The Festival of Remembrance is not about politics, it is about the people who went to war and never returned. My father being one of them in 1942. I found it a very moving service.

    Well said, Peter. I regretably missed over half of it but as usual I found it most moving.
     
  15. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    - but weren't the Gurkhas usually represented at the Festival of Remembrance???

    If you were watching it instead of whinging about it on here you'd have seen two Gurkha Officers at The Muster.

    Times change but the meaning stays the same.

    I thought it was well done.
    It has to be brought up to date, young men & women are dying and being maimed today.

    Only thing that did strike me as odd were the electric guitars.

    Let's Rock!
    ;)
     
  16. englandphil

    englandphil Very Senior Member

    Whilst I agree that is was too 'sexed' up, I do understand and agree for the need to change. The RBL has an ever reducing membership, and has to start appealing to a younger generation, a generation who cannot maybe connect with the Great War or the 2nd World War, or even the Falklands conflict, but can connect with the conflicts that our present day troops are fighting in.

    WE WILL REMEMBER THEM
     
  17. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    One thing I noticed, I never saw one WW2 veteran.
    Sapper
     
  18. englandphil

    englandphil Very Senior Member

    One thing I noticed, I never saw one WW2 veteran.
    Sapper

    Sapper, you are NOT forgotten.
     
  19. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Brian
    The National Standard of the Normandy Veterans Association was there with all the other standards.
    They even mentioned the fact that the last official D-Day Anniversary is next year.

    Did I watch the same program as the rest of you?

    Stop knocking it, at least it was on prime time Saturday night tele on BBC1.
     
  20. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Weren't the Chelsea Pensioners from WW2?
     

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