Time honoured

FERRYHILL remembers reverently, impressively, solemnly, suitably. All goes to plan, if not necessarily like clockwork.

That’s another story, to which – fullness of time – we shall return.

It could have been anywhere.

There’s no particular reason for being in Ferryhill Market Place at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, save that I know the vicar (who’s elsewhere, anyway) and the town clerk, who isn’t.

They’ve been gathering from 9am, old men with memories and with walking sticks, the parade marshal with his pace stick and the youngsters, the uniformed organisations, with their instructions.

A rumour goes round – takes wing, probably – that three RAF Hawks, due over the huge Remembrance Day parade at Sunderland, will at 10.45 dip wings over Ferryhill, too.

Some doubt it. “Sharp get from Ferryhill to Sunderland in one of those,” the story teller insists.

Peter Atkinson, the mayor, would normally march with the town band but is at the head of the procession, wreath in hand, with Professor John Anstee, the Lord Lieutenant’s representative.

“I bet I’ll still march in step with the band,” he says.

A modern mayor, Peter even has a page on Facebook. Somewhat surprisingly for a brass bandsman, it reveals his musical interest to be northern soul, Kings of Leon and Lady Antebellum, which sounds like it should be part of the skeletal system, but probably isn’t.

The roads are closed, warnings of clamping. The union jack flutters outside the town hall. Next to it there’s another flag. “Investors in People,” it says.

George Miller, former Seaforth Highlanders’ regimental sergeantmajor and now secretary and treasurer of Ferryhill Royal British Legion, is magnificent in tartan trews and dress uniform. Usually he’d wear his kilt, he says, but not on a bright-bitter morning like last Sunday.

Born in Peterhead, he’d spent much of the war with the Merchant convoys, married a Ferryhill lass, anchored and for 20 years put the Ferryhill Debonaires – a juvenile jazz band – through their paces, too.

Though 88, age has not wearied him. “This day,” says George, “is one of the biggest and proudest of the year.”

THE parade moves off at 9.45am, round by the old folks; home and the Methodist chapel and back to St Luke’s church.

It’s orderly, dignified. The little girl who’s skipping may be excused.

What does she know, could she know, of the reasons for all this?

The church overflows, standing room only. “A bit squashed,” someone says.

The order of service notes that there’ll be refreshments afterwards in the church centre and that “all facilities” will be available. This is a St Luke’s code. It means the bar’s open.

Since the Reverend Keith Lumsdon is on parade at his other church in West Cornforth, the service is led by Les Lewis and Linda Linsday, both readers. Les wears proudly on his vestments the medal his father won in the Second World War.

There are hymns like Now Thank We All Our God and All People That on Earth Do Dwell, another to the tune of the Dam Busters March.

Poignantly, the children also sing Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream, written in 1950 by the American folk singer Ed McCurdy and first encountered in the 1960s on a Simon and Garfunkel LP.

Last night I had the strangest dream I’d ever dreamed before.

I dreamed the world had all agreed To put an end to war…

The theme’s echoed in Linda’s address. She talks of a spring visit to Belgium and of seeing all the war graves, remembers her grandfather telling her stories of the 1914 to 1918 conflict.

“He used to tell us what a good time he had. When we got older and realised he wasn’t telling the whole truth, he stopped telling the stories.”

She has a pertinent question, too. Can war secure peace?

At 10.45 they march off to the war memorial, a large crowd quietly gathered. There are no Hawks, birds flown.

The band plays Nimrod, as it does on Whitehall, the town hall clock chimes 11, the bugler sounds the Last Post, George Miller intones the familiar words: At the going down of the sun And in the morning We will remember them.

After the wreath laying, the poppy panoply, most head back to the church centre. The vicar’s back; we take advantage of the facilities.

Jamie Corrigan, the town council’s executive officer, reveals that he’s been up in the town hall attic for half of Saturday afternoon – “up and down those stairs about 15 times” – trying to fix the clock, which was two minutes out. It wouldn’t do on Remembrance Day.

The works, or whatever it is that makes digital clocks tick, had duly been attended to – the only problem that he’d somehow sabotaged the mechanism that stops the clock striking overnight and thus kept good Ferryhill folk from their slumbers.

“Heard about it?” says the mayor, “I’ve already had emails and telephone calls about it.”

Jamie thinks he’s fixed it again, has left his home number with nearby residents so that they can contact him – “day or night” – in the event of further untimely interventions.

The crowd’s heading homeward, looking forward to next Friday when the town’s Christmas lights will be switched on. Ferryhill does that well, too.

Numbers ever increasing, this was one of thousands of similar services to remember the fallen in towns and villages throughout the land. Few may have done it better; Ferryhill had well remembered.