South Yorkshire Times – Friday 18 November 1932

The Season of Remembrance

Wombwell

An Armistice Memory

News For The Numb

A Remembrance Day service at the Wombs-ell Parish Church, on Sunday, was attended by various organisations, including: Ambulance Brigade, the Nursing Division, Boy Scouts, Police, representatives of the Working Men’s Club and a large body of ex-Service men. The service was conducted by the rector, the Rev. J. St. Leger Blakeney, and the Rev. R. J. Jones. The hymns were: “Fight the good fight,” “Ten thousand times ten thousand,” “‘Around tiro throne of God a band.” “Abide with me.” -Onward Christian soldiers,” and the National Anthem. Wreaths from the British Legion, the Station Road Working Men’s Club, and Ambulance Brigade, were placed on the chancel steps and later deposited on the war memorial.

The sermon was preached by the Rev. A. C. Austen. M.A., who recalled that at the end of the war he and a friend were sleeping in a peacock shed behind a chateau some miles from the front line. At five o’clock in the morning a party of men came round boisterously announcing the glad tidings. He and his companions were not in the mood for being disturbed and suggested, with all the politeness of the Army, that the fellows go and make their din elsewhere; and so they turned over and went to sleep again. He mentioned this as an illustration of the numbness reached by many men who served in the War. Although they had been celebrating Armistice for fourteen years there were many wives and mothers who had been told practically nothing of the experiences of their men. Most certainly only the more seemly parts of the story had been told. Soldiers home on leave said very little about the war.

It might be dangerous to remember what was best forgotten, but on the other hand there was a danger of the horror of war being overlooked as the years went by. It was amazing how the idea of “war to end war” caught on. It had no foundation. Many earnest attempts had been made since the war to lay the foundations of enduring peace, but it was the spirit behind the pacts that really decided whether they were going to be successful. Before the war the nations said in effect, “Thank you God, but we can manage our own affairs now.” When they found themselves in the catastrophe they asked “Why does God allow war?”

At the Cenotaph the “Last Post” and “Reveille” were sounded by Bugler Ernest Wright.

The annual Remembrance service was held in the Parish Church on Sunday evening when the Rev. A. C. Austen. M.C., M.NI vicar of St. Barnabas, Sheffield, gave an address. The service was in memory of local men who fell in the war, and of parishioners who had died during the year. The choir sang the anthem “Blessed are they that are departed.”