Despite the advent of Spanish Flu in January 1918, the overwhelming sentiment in the country was one of relief, we had 'won' the war, the killing was over. Both of these were in fact mistaken, the Armistice eventually proved to be the precursor of another war and long after November 1918 there was unfinished business in places like the Middle East. Probably the next most powerful sentiment was that of gratitude towards the brave men who had died and a sense that they should be remembered. A large, temporary memorial shrine was built in Hyde Park in August 1918, with over 100,000 visitors in its first week, it lasted over a year. The Cenotaph was erected on Whitehall in London. It began as a temporary structure erected for a peace parade following the end of the war and was replaced in 1920 by a permanent structure intended to be Britain's primary national war memorial. Sir Edwin Lutyens' design was chosen for this and for all official grave markers in overseas cemeteries. His intent was that they should be as near non-religious as possible, the only concession on the Cenotaph itself was a sword that could be seen as a cross.
In Barlick a temporary wooden cenotaph was erected and I have been told it was in Fernlea Avenue but the funny thing is that I have a picture of it in Letcliffe park so the jury is out on that one! By 1923 our present stone memorial was placed in Letcliffe Park where it remained until 1983 when it was moved to its present position at the end of Wellhouse Road. Many businesses and schools made their own memorials to commemorate colleagues and pupils who had died.
One thing that has always struck me is that most memorials name only members of the armed forces, I would like to see members of the public services, what we knew in WW2 as the Civil Defence, remembered as well. I remember how impressed I was when I saw the war memorial at Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany because it included the names of civilians killed during the shelling of the town by us late in 1945, an action which seems to have had little, if any, military justification. Think of the civilian victims of bombing in Britain, these were just as much casualties of war as the armed forces.
When I was doing the interviews for the Lancashire Textile Project I talked to people about their war service and I remember being surprised by what one veteran of the Great War told me. He said that he objected to the words used in the annual remembrance services where there was reference to 'Our Glorious Dead'. He said that there was nothing glorious about dying in the mud of the Western Front and that these men didn't 'give their lives', they had them taken away in the most horrible and arbitrary manner. I have to admit that when I hear this today I think of that man and reflect that he may have had a point.
The Barlick War Memorial being rebuilt in 1983.
