The enduring power of war memorials

This Sunday, in my village of Etchingham, East Sussex, we will gather around our war memorial. It is a fine monument, designed by Sir Herbert Baker, with the names of the dead inscribed around an octagonal base. There are no famous names upon it: indeed, there is only one commissioned officer, a Second Lieutenant (who had once been a commercial clerk, working from the age of 14). The rest were mostly young farm labourers: the oldest, aged 44, had been a ‘domestic chauffeur’.

The rural working classes leave little in the way of records. These men left no ‘voices of the Great War’. But though mute, they are not inglorious; and one of the most eloquent writers of the era spoke on their behalf. On 28 April 1920, in ‘rain, sleet and bitter wind’, Rudyard Kipling made the speech at the unveiling of the memorial.