Page 73 - Sylvia Malt - Side by Side

Sidcup Kentish Times....................
Armistice Day - 12th November 1919

"St. John's, Sidcup was a sad, unlit church. The air was grey save for one weak glint of sun
that fought its way through the gloom as a little symbol of eternal light.

The nave was filled with schoolchildren who had marched up from the National Schools
with their headmaster and his staff, and not very far away was their old headmaster, who
taught many of the boys who fought and fell, and who were being remembered in the spirit
of gratitude.

Round about the boys and girls were the older people - the people of the great war, some of
whom were the sufferers. The little white-robed choir boys were present in their stalls. The
vicar took his stand in the chancel steps as one of the people, and the short service
opened with the singing of hymn 'O, God, our help in ages past.'

Sidcup's 90 dead - In speaking to the children, the vicar gave them the message of Earl
Haig, the Commander of the British Forces in France, in which it had been said that 600,000
of our race had by the sacrifice of their lives, upheld the liberty of the people. The vicar
said he hoped that that day, as long as the British Empire lasted, would be regarded as one
for showing tribute to those who had gone before.

Shortly they would hear the bell toll 90 times, one for every soul who went out of the Parish
and did not return. That day, he wanted them to remember, something was being unveiled
and veiled in London, and these things would ever stand before them.

The first was the cenotaph, which was being unveiled in Whitehall, the last was the grave
which would veil the body of the unknown warrior in the abbey which would lie there in
memory of those who had fallen in the war.

The service concluded with the recital of the Lord's prayer and a special prayer for the
"dear departed" and then at the sound of the bell, came the two minutes silence, faintly
broken by little sobs of remembrance here and there - many in tears. The National Anthem
was sung with broken emotion."

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