Stop All The Clocks

Just Memories
now that Harry Patch is dead

Harry Patch is dead. Just a man
who lived his time, and then some.
His kind will never die, along with
solemn memories. The young to come,
we hope, will never cease at times
to think how he survived,
to live across three centuries
untarnished by the carnage
he did not speak of for 80 years,
until just ghosts inhabited his world.
Then people came to listen.
Never again, he said. Never again.


I just caught on the news the other day that a memorial has just been unveiled in Wells Cathedral to honor the last soldier to have survived fighting in the trenches of the First World War.

Harry Patch was 101 when he died, just a couple of years ago. What is remarkable about this old soldier is that he never spoke about the horrors that he lived through, until he reached the age of 100.

And then, during his last decade, in effect just the last year or so of his life, he spoke about the terrible memories that he still carried with him.

And that had in effect accompanied him throughout his life.

His story is a moving one, and one worth finding out about. For when he began to speak publicly about his memories and his experiences, he spoke with extraordinary humanity about the horror of war, and against the pursuance of it.

One phrase in particular sticks in my mind from what I heard about the unveiling of his memorial in Wells Cathedral, and that was how all it took to end it were a group of men around a table in a railway carriage.

And the countless millions of wasted lives, lost to the world in which they were born.