| Address to the OS Congregation |
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V.E. DAY (60 years on) 8th May 2005 “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France , we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” I hope you will forgive me for quoting possibly the best known and most memorable speech delivered by Winston Churchill during World War II – to a packed House of Commons on 4 th June 1940 in the wake of the invasion of France and of the evacuation from Dunkirk , completed the previous day. Although I was not born for another twelve years, I feel the power of these splendid words even now – and to those of you who heard them at the time, I can only imagine how stirring they were then, even in the shadow of expected invasion. Stirring words, momentous times, varied memories... all of these come flooding back on a day like today. It is WONDERFUL to be able to welcome so many of you back to Sherborne – all of you involved in some capacity in the war – whether as servicemen; as part of the war effort in some way; or as a member of the School before 1945. And welcome, too, to your guests. I have always been fascinated by History and by the History of the World Wars in particular, and I feel it a privilege to have met people who took part in them and who gave so much, so that people like me, and all of us born since VE day sixty years ago, can live in freedom and peace. As I was beginning to think about and to plan for today, I was contacted last Sunday by the widow of Tony Bethell, who was in Harper between 1936 and 1941 and became famous as one of the very few survivors of ‘The Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft III. Tony died last year and I am sure that many of you knew him and probably also his brother, Drew, also of Harper, also a POW (in Italy ) and subsequently a Major-General – and we are delighted that Pam, his widow, is actually here today. What I can reveal this morning is that Tony kept a detailed account of his time in Stalag Luft III prison-camp but he never published it. There are only a handful of copies of the memoir which have gone to museums, including the Imperial War Museum , but the last copy will soon be sent back to Tony’s old School from Canada , where he lived for much of his life. Sherborne will guard those precious memories for posterity with great pride. Some of you were, no doubt, here in September last year at the anniversary of Arnhem , to help dedicate the splendid plaque to the five Shirburnian winners of the Victoria Cross. It was a most moving service and it reminds us all of the feats of bravery and sacrifice carried out by so many. If you have not yet admired the plaque, you will see it on the wall of the War Memorial just outside the Chapel doors on the right as you go out to find lunch. In November last year, I received the following letter out of the blue from an address in Stirlingshire from someone called Frank Ellen who is not a Shirburnian. In many ways this letter encapsulates both a general experience of wartime and also a sense of what you were fighting for sixty years ago. "I am moved to write to you, as this is the period when memories of the 1939/45 war are sharpest and most meaningful." In early 1940 and only just conscripted I joined a class for potential Royal Artillery surveyors in Gosport , Hampshire and there met an ex Sherborne schoolboy – ALA (Tony) Tasker (who was in Lyon 1933-38) – we both being around 20 years old. We had an instant rapport – cricket, music, love of the natural world and a positive sense of humour, being much of the interactive binding. By a combination of luck and opportunism we both joined the 74 th Field Regiment R.A. and were soon in position overlooking Chesil Beach in support of an even more raw company of the Dorsetshire Infantry ready to repel the German army!! During this waiting period Tony taught me so much by his humour, encouragement and huge widening of the more restricted outlook of a secondary schoolboy, only reasonable at sport and not much else! It is worth noting here that Tony exerted a similar positive reaction to and from the mainly Durham miners et al who comprised the bulk of his fellow other ranks – they too found this Public Schoolboy, a warm, considerate, utterly natural and remarkable human being. To say Tony broadened my attitude and thinking in the best possible and positive way is but a poor way of expressing that experience. Our Regiment in 1941 was then sent to join the 8 th Army in Egypt ; but Tony had just been accepted for an OCTU place and we continued what had to be a somewhat desultory wartime correspondence. Tony’s ideas and ideals have rarely left my thinking and actions since those relatively brief days of discussion and the sorting out of youthful views. We met again (1944) so very briefly when I had been commissioned and returned from the Middle East to join the Royal Devon Yeomanry in Sussex . Tony’s Regiment, the Leicestershire Yeomanry, were also in Sussex preparing for the Normandy landing. Even after the three incident packed years apart, the very brief reunion was quietly satisfying but sadly the last time we met – a few months later he was killed near Nijmegen – by this time I had met his family and soon had married my lovely wife who then had not had the privilege of meeting and knowing Tony. It was warmingly providential that after demobilisation our first house in peacetime was in Oxshott, Surrey about half a mile from where Tony had lived and where Tony’s parson brother (Derek) baptised both our children and Tony’s mother became godmother of our daughter. This is in a way an Epitaph for a truly remarkable, kind, considerate, thoroughly Christian person, who without fuss but by sheer quiet example made this world a vastly better place by his presence. May I wish that your school continues to export pupils of such precious calibre for many moons to come.’ I am pleased to say that Frank Ellen is here with us this morning. He has come all the way from Scotland to be part of our celebration. Mr Ellen, you are very welcome. Today is the sixtieth anniversary of what must have been a great moment of liberation and celebration for everyone who had lived through the war. It is fitting that you should come back to your old School to remember it all and also to remember your friends who cannot be here. This is your day; the boys are mostly at home on an exeat away from School; in spite of many changes you can see that the Courts at least are as they were (although repaired since those bombs fell on the town on 30 th September 1940). Do go into the Undercroft below – now all part of the Library – where there is a small selection of World War II memorabilia in a display case. Those of us who represent your School today are grateful caretakers of a grand tradition, of which we are all a part, and it is a great privilege to be able to offer a simple THANK YOU for what you did; and I would like to think that Sherborne still does hold dear and still does encourage the virtues mentioned by Frank Ellen: the virtues of kindness, of consideration, of Christianity and of making the world a better place. I will end by going back to June 1940 and to another of Churchill’s famous speeches and today, I dedicate it and its sentiment, to all Shirburnians who gave so much so that we might benefit. "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour" |
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