Patrick writes ...
Following the BBC’s excellent and moving VJ+75 DAY recent commemoration from the National Arboretum, we decided to book and make a visit. We arrived at twelve and were welcomed in the reception area with masks and hand washing instructions.
Masks and all the COVID precautions had to be observed indoors in the covered area, though outside, walking round, they were not necessary. We walked round to the area which is dedicated to the war in the Far East.
Here, there is a section of rail and decaying sleepers from the actual Burma Railway. It was in ablaze with floral tributes from the official commemoration for the 75 years since the actual end of WW2. There were a number of people silently mulling around. There was a lady with her daughter standing near to us who placed some flowers on the track and then stood back in contemplation. I asked her if the flowers were for someone special. She replied telling us that they were for her father.
We got into conversation with them - the older lady was from the Netherlands, her daughter lived in England. Her father was in the army in the Dutch East Indies protectorate during the war. As a result he was captured and was sent to Burma and became a prisoner of war for three and half years, being forced to work on the Burma Railway. He survived but was seriously traumatised - the result of witnessing the events while in captivity. They asked us to take a couple photos of them by their flowers. Them we wished them well and said goodbye. We moseyed around looking at the various memorials and dedications. It is incredible seeing all the different groups and specialities involved in the wars, and represented with memorials in the Arboretum.
Then we found the memorial to the Ack-Ack ‘girls’. A number of years ago now, some Nuneaton members will remember that, when the arboretum was first opened. we filmed a dedication service there. Vee Robinson, who had been a member of Nuneaton Moviemakers, had asked us to film the event. She herself had served in WW2 as an ‘Ack-Ack’ girl in a gun battery. She had invited Mary Churchill, (the daughter of Winston), who had also served in a battery during the war. Now, as Lady Soames, I, together with Gerry, managed to get an interview with her in which she recounted her memories of that time. Then the cloud, which should reside over Bill’s mother’s, arrived suddenly and directly overhead. And did it rain? I couldn’t get my Cagoule on quick enough before I got drenched.
We made our way to a wooden shelter, which by reading the plaque, I learned that it had been partly constructed from timbers from a lychgate of a Cemetery of a POW camp in Burma. Pinned on the gate was a note bearing the message, “Remembering my father, Harold Bernard ‘Bunny’ Rimmer. 3A years in Changi jail. They sacrificed their tomorrows so that we could have our today”. I was sitting on a slatted bench chewing on a corned beef and tomato sandwich. My thoughts then reflected on those poor souls out there who wouldn’t have had a feast like that - they had to toil on hardly a crumb, regardless of the monsoon rains. It was worth getting drenched to experience that feeling. Then suddenly the sky was blue and the sun came out. We walked again for about an hour and a half. I found the memorial stone inscribed: ’The Home Front Workers’. I thought of my mother, who had had to give up her training as a garment pattern cutter to work in a Coventry factory making bits for Bristol Beaufighters when she was a just a gal. I couldn’t locate the memorial to the Warwickshire Regiment site with the Antelope to think of my Dad who ‘did his bit’. He was in the T.A. Before the war and had a ‘pip’ up as a lance corporal when he was transferred to the Army. He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant and was de-mobbed in 1946. He spoke little of his time in the Army other than saying ‘I lost most of my mates’.
The Arboretum is a large site. Walking round, I took many photos, 126 in all. It is amazing that every bench, tree, and marker, is dedicated to someone’s son, husband, grandfather or other relative who’d been either lost or remembered in the many wars and conflicts the services were engaged in recent times. We made our way to the main pavilion and sat outside with a cuppa each and shared a lump of chocolate cake. Then we came home. It is the fourth time we have visited the National Arboretum. It is quite thought provoking when you are there. If you have never visited the site you really should, it is quite an experience.
Patrick