THE ROYAL CORPS OF SIGNALS MEMORIAL.
The dedication and blessing of the new memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas took place on Tuesday the 20th May 2008 in the presence of our Colonel-in-chief Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal.
The invitation to the event was open to all our membership and was attended by Sue & myself, Syd Wilson, Rae & Bill White, Gwen & Ted Theis, Hazel & Ted Hebden, Moira & Bruce Graham and Yorky Layton.
We arrived at the Arboretum at approximately 1135 and the Dedication ceremony took place at 1215. There were some 40 standard bearers representing branches throughout the UK and our own Yorky Layton represented the Harrogate Branch. For the life-of-me I can remember no time during the 60s where I had seen Yorky looking so smart ! Attending the ceremony I would anticipate over 1,000 serving and ex-servicemen were in location and inevitably we met up with innumerable ex colleagues on the day.
The memorial that has been erected is nothing more than spectacular and is a true and fitting tribute to the fallen members of the Corps. The Arboretum and grounds, although no where near maturity with regards to the trees etc; that have been planted, is absolutely splendid and the thought, imagination and architectural work that has gone into it all, which is representative of the Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, is simply magnificent. To all, do make an effort to visit the Arboretum and I promise that it is something that you will not regret !
Anyway back to the day:- Service of memorial over and HRH leaves the site; Syd our exalted chairman calls one over:- Reme I’ve got to dash would you take care of the Minnions; assuming he meant Ted Theis & Ted Hebden I said “ Where are You going “ ? Oh ! came the reply:- I’m on the list to be introduced to The Princess Royal; with that he was away and might I add looking quite smug ! Anyway it did turn out that he wasn’t the only one of our crowd to be received as Rae also was on the list ! This I believe as Bill White ( Rae’s 2 i/c ) was very much part of the set-up with regards to the organisation of the memorial, this over quite a period of time !
One part of the grounds is an area referred to as “ SHOT AT DAWN “ This area depicts a statue of a blind folded soldier facing the firing squad and behind are an incredible number of stakes with the name, rank and age of every soldier that was shot by our own during WW1 for varying offences. It was truly upsetting to see how young these soldiers were. This area has been placed there as on the 7th November 2006 the British Government agreed to give a Posthumous pardon to all of those executed for Military offences during the Great War.
The whole event was superb and sadly my literacy skills are not of a standard to really portray just how fantastic the place is !
Reme Harper.