December Last Post

Unusually the rain fell just as the ceremony begun. The first time many could recall rain falling during the ceremony for several years. Many people had probably checked the weather report and stayed at home as there were fewer than 40 people in attendance.

Our Individual Remembrance was a Canadian and not for the first time, was not a victim of war, but was killed when he crashed the motorcycle he was riding. Lance-Corporal Andrew William MacIntosh, Service Number: B/72703 of the 11 Provost Company, Canadian Provost Corps died on the 3^rd December 1943, exactly 80 years ago today aged 38.

He was a bar tender in civilian life, son of Andrew and Marguerite MacIntosh of Chatham, New Brunswick. He died at Wool, Bere Regis, Dorset due to a fractured skull from a motorbike accident while off duty.

Our poem was The Dead, Part III of the 1914 collection of the celebrated poet, Rupert Brooke.

The Dead

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!

There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,

But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.

These laid the world away; poured out the red

Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be

Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,

That men call age; and those who would have been.

Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth.

Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.

Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,

And paid his subjects with a royal wage;

And Nobleness walks in our ways again;

And we have come into our heritage.

Our Senior Standard Bearer, Tom Milne paraded the Union Flag and Alan Lopez the BLP Standard. We also had Standards from the Woking Royal Naval Association and the Artists’ Rifles. Mrs Ruth Moore sounded the Last Post and Peter Hills delivered his usual wisdom. The Exhortation and Kohima Epitaph were spoken by the same individual, member Denis.