An impossibly grey day hung above attendees at this year’s Remembrance Sunday gathering at the Platt Memorial Hall, and yet the service, which is now in its 102nd year, was full of colour and life. Once again, the children from our local uniformed groups and Platt School stepped forward, reminding all that, however gloomy the present may seem, hope and better days are concealed just around the corner. I recalled the 2020 ceremony, which was equally dreary in terms of weather, participants, minimal in number, standing distanced from each other on pre-designated markers on the Memorial Square, wondering at the time if life would ever be the same again.

In the past, the church service preceded the march to the Memorial Hall. Maybe someone can remember when this changed to the current order of events, but in the 20+ years I’ve lived in the parish, it has always been Memorial Hall and then Church. As the service got underway, Adam Nunn, our fantastic local poppy appeal co-ordinator, and his two children picked their way through the churchyard, placing Remembrance Crosses in front of the four Commonwealth War Graves and also, this year, two family headstones commemorating loved ones who died in the Great War, but whose bodies remain forever in France & Flanders. Sadly, one monument belonging to the Laceys has lain on its back for several years, its inscription gradually weathered down by the seasons. By chance, if any family member is reading this, Revd. Lorraine Turner would be keen to hear from you.

In Platt Woods, stoic and still, barely a leaf fell from the trees at 11 am, and I took the two-minute silence alone among a chestnut thicket, Big Ben heralding its start on my phone and Reveille remotely ending the moment of reflection. The woods, torn down in 1916, resurrected after the war, destroyed in 1987, but once again risen, has seen it all and endured, carrying untold memories and secrets.

This was Platt on Remembrance Day 2024.