Only remembered for what we have done

On Friday I went over to Carmunnock to watch their Drama Club’s winter show, which this year was a moving tribute to the villagers from 100 years ago; the soldiers who fought in the First World War and the villagers at home who worked to support the war effort. The actors all played real people and you could tell that it was very personal to the community. At the end the entire cast sang a hymn “Only Remembered” about being remembered for your deeds which had many of us in tears, myself included. It was really respectful and a lovely way for the village to remember and honour their forebears.

Fading away like the stars in the morning,

Losing their light in the glorious sun.
Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling,
Only remembered for what we have done.

Only remembered, only remembered, 
Only remembered for what we have done.
Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling,
Only remembered for what we have done.

Only the truth that in life we have spoken,
Only the seed that in life we have sown.
These shall pass onwards when we are forgotten,
Only remembered for what we have done.

Who’ll sing the anthem and who’ll tell the story?
Will the line hold, will it scatter and run?
Shall we at last be united in glory?
Only remembered for what we have done.

by Horatius Bonar 

The next day we met Heather and Ewan at the Art Galleries to attend a talk with slides and film clips about the identification and reburial of 250 Australian and British soldiers who were killed at the battle of Fromelles on 19th and 20th July 1916. Heather’s Mum and Dad had told her about it and they very kindly invited us along. It was absolutely fascinating. The battle was a disaster for the Allies with 5500 Australian soldiers and 2000 British soldiers killed or wounded. The Germans buried the dead but eight communal burial areas were overlooked in the 1920s when most of the war dead were reinterred by the War Graves Commission. In 2008 the exercise began to exhume, identify, and bury the men, this time in their own graves with headstones. Not all could be identified, but a remarkable number were, using clothing, badges, dental and DNA testing. The film clips showing the gratitude of the families of the soldiers were especially moving. One mother had written to the authorities in the early 1920s desperately hoping for confirmation of where her son was buried. Sadly she was long dead by the exhumation but now her son has been identified and reburied, and we saw a photograph of his gravestone. For the second time in two days I was moved to tears.