A few weeks ago, I drove onto the UWI Mona campus via the Post Office gate. (UWI Mona = University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica). The poui trees were in bloom and it was a magnificent sight!
Everywhere I looked… …there were poui blossoms…
…including in front of the Gibraltar Camp monument…
…dedicated to the Gibraltarian Evacuees living at Gibraltar Camp, Jamaica 1940 – 1944…
Things come to your notice in a variety of ways, some of them unexpected. I was reminded of the Remembrance Day ceremony at National Heroes Park by a Ministry of National Security tweet on Friday.
Today being the hundredth anniversary of Armistice Day and never having been before, I decided to go to the memorial ceremony. There was adequate parking at National Heroes Park, and as I walked inside the entrance, I was encouraged to make a donation to the Annual Poppy Appeal, which I did.
While I was waiting for the ceremony to begin, I saw a gentleman walking around with poppies and heard him telling someone at the end of the row I was sitting in that he was 85 and that people called him the Poppy Man. I intended to speak with him at the end of the ceremony to ask his name, but unfortunately I didn’t see him later.
The National Memorial Service was scheduled to start at 10:55am, with the official arrivals beginning earlier.
(This is a link to a copy of the full programme for the Remembrance Day 2018 service.)
Arrivals
Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away
– O God, our help in ages past – Opening Hymn
Period of Silence & The Last Post
(The period of silence commences and ends with a one-gun Salute. The Last Post is sounded by the JDF buglers.)
The Exhortation was read by Mr Gerald Manhertz, who I was told after the ceremony is 90-years-old and is one of the few living Jamaicans to have served in World War II.
The National Anthem was sung before the Wreath Laying Ceremony.
Justice, Truth be ours forever,
Jamaica, Land we love.
– National Anthem
Wreath Laying Ceremony
His Excellency The Governor General Greets the War Veterans on Parade
Once the ceremony ended, there were the official departures…
…after which people milled around, talking and taking photographs….
I am glad that I attended the Memorial Service today. Acts of remembering are important to a society.
“This week, share a peek of something — a photo that reveals just enough of your subject to get us interested. A tantalizing detail. An unusual perspective.”
Was the small diamond-shaped window put there to allow him to see out?
It also allows us to see in…
…as he stands guard…
…at the Jamaica War Memorial in National Heroes’ Park in Kingston.
The Cenotaph is in memory of the thousands of Jamaicans who died in World Wars I and II. The Memorial was first erected on Church Street in 1922 to honour those who died in World War 1; in 1953 it was moved to its present location. Soldiers from the Jamaica Defence Force form a ceremonial guard at the Memorial. The epitaph on the monument reads: “In memory of the men who fell in the great war. Their name liveth for evermore.”
…there were poui blossoms…
