Today is Remembrance Day where we remember those men and women who gave their lives so that we can be free. At 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the first World War officially ended and over the coming year fields of poppies grew where the trenches once were. The poppy flower has now become the symbol of remembrance in several countries and across the British Commonwealth. Today we can look back and recognise their sacrifice and look at the world and those fighting for freedom today.
Lest we forget!
Watch this short video about the poppy and its origins as a symbol. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGCHk5_2skY
"Lest we forget" is a phrase commonly used in war remembrance services and commemorative occasions in English speaking countries, specifically those connected to the British Empire. Before the term was used in reference to soldiers and war, it was first used in an 1897 Christian poem written by Rudyard Kipling called "Recessional", a poem written to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The phrase occurs eight times; and is repeated at the end of the first four stanzas in order to add particular emphasis regarding the dangers of failing to remember.
'God of our fathers,
known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold.
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!'