Profile – The Royal British Legion

Profile

The Royal British Legion

The Royal British Legion is 90 this year and has been active in Melbourn since it was founded in 1921, as a voice for the ex-Service community. The Legion has 2,500 branches around the country and overseas, providing support for people in their local communities and a meeting place for members to get together. Today over 360,000 members continue to ensure that this voice does not go unheard.

In the early years, to qualify as a member of the Legion you had to have served in one of the armed forces, but nowadays anyone may become a member; and although there is still a Women’s Branch, women are encouraged to join the men in the British Legion. All they need to do is subscribe to the main tenet of the Legion, which is: • Reflection – through Remembrance of past sacrifice in the cause of freedom • Hope – by remembering the past, a younger generation has the chance of a better future • Comradeship – through shared experience and mutual support • Selflessness – by putting others first • Service – to those in need and in support of the whole community.

The Royal British Legion is a UK charity that has been helping Service people past and present for 90 years, and sadly the need for their work is as vital as ever. They are committed to the welfare, interests and memory of the Service family – those who have made a unique commitment to their country and deserve to be rewarded for that with long term care. The Legion is probably best known for its role as the nation’s custodian of Remembrance and for the Poppy Appeal, the annual fundraising campaign. But the Legion is not just about poppies in November, but caring for people all year round. The Legion provides welfare to the whole Armed Forces family – serving, ex-Service and their dependents, and also campaigns on a range of issues affecting Service people.

The Poppy

During the First World War some of the bloodiest fighting took place in the Flanders and Picardy regions of Belgium and Northern France. Following the devastation of the countryside the poppy grew and flourished. The fields were awash with red and the analogy with the blood, shed on those fields, made the poppy an obvious symbol of that terrible time. This was further endorsed by John McCrae, a doctor serving with the Canadian Armed Forces, who was deeply moved by what he saw and was inspired to write these poignant verses in 1915 – In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place: and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders’ fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe; To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high, If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders’ Fields

From the left: Betty Murphy, Ann Neaves, Pauline Parker, Molly Chamberlain, Sheila Gouldthorpe, Patrick Parker, Tom Hughes, Don Littlechild

What’s on

New Melbourn Singers

As part of Cambridgeshire Choral Society, we have an exciting programme planned for the coming season. On 28th January 2012 we shall be giving a concert in Cambridge, where the works to be performed are ‘St. Nicholas’ by Benjamin Britten and Vaughan Williams’ ‘Five Mystical Songs’, at Emmanuel Unitesd Reformed Church.

We shall then be joining with Ely Choral Society to perform Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’ in Ely Cathedral on 31st March. For further information please contact Monica Gillings (262399) or Adrian Jacobs (243224).

Pre-School Picassos

11th January - 8th February 2012 Come and join us at Pre-School Picassos Art Group at the Farmland Museum & Denny Abbey. This course of 5 x 45 minute morning sessions held every Wednesday will introduce young artists (aged 2 to 5) a range of artistic and fun activities that can also be used at home. The sessions are led by local artist and experienced tutor Ann Biggs. No experience is necessary, just make sure you wear something you don’t mind getting a little messy! All five sessions costs £15 and bookings are now being taken. Spaces are limited so pre-booking is essential. For further information contact Chris Leuchars (Education Officer) T: 01223 860988

Wimpole Hall

Christmas Lunches Sat Dec 3rd to Wed Dec 21st. Booking essential 01223 206001 Pick, Pluck and Dress your own Turkey Sat 17th, Sun 18th Dec. £75/bird includes free entrance for 4 people. 01223 206000

SAVE THE DATE!

Burns’ Night Supper Saturday 28th January 2012, 8pm 3-course meal followed by music and dancing Barley Town House, Barley, Herts For more information and tickets please phone Lucie on 01223 870251 All profits to Save the Children

The Tavern Gallery Meldreth

The Tavern Gallery will be closed over the Winter period from 23rd Dec and opening in February with an exhibition by The Royston Arts Society. In the spring there are painting workshops and an exhibition of superb watercolours by Rosalind Ridley in March. The Gallery is fully booked for Exhibitions throughout 2012.

The Farmland Museum & Denny Abbey

A Dickensian Christmas

Saturday 10 December 2011, 12- 5pm Carols 4pm- 4.30pm

Join us at Denny Abbey and The Farmland Museum for a family Christmas event full of Dickensian festivities.

Children’s activities include making a Christmas snowglobe (bring your own glass jar and lid), designing your own Dickensian Christmas plate and colouring in activities, plus a chance to take part in the Christmas stocking trail around the site.

Along with these activities have a bag of hot roasted chestnuts, enjoy a mince pie or two in the museum café, browse the selection of children’s books on sale and meet our Dickensian characters and street strollers. Don’t forget a visit to our 1940s cottage decorated ready for Christmas day and then join the Friends of the Museum for carols by candlelight supported by St John’s Church choir of Waterbeach in the atmospheric setting of Denny Abbey.

Carols by candlelight in the Abbey from 4pm. Be sure to wrap up warm and bring a torch!

The well-stocked gift shop will be open for stocking fillers, cards and gifts and the Tea-Room will be open for mince pies and hot refreshments 12pm- 5pm.

The Farmland Museum & Denny Abbey is open every day from 1st April – 31st October,12-5pm on weekdays and 10.30am-5pm at weekends and bank holidays. It is situated on the A10 between Cambridge and Ely. Admission prices are Adults £5.00, Concessions £4.00, Children £3.00 (under 5s are free), Family Ticket £12.00 with reduced admission to the Farmland Museum for English Heritage members.

For further information visit our new website at www.dennyfarmlandmuseum.org.uk T:01223 860988 e: info@farmlandmuseum.org.uk

The First World War ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. McCrae never made it home, but his words moved an enterprising American teacher called Moina Bell Michael who decided to sell poppies made of red silk to raise funds for wounded veterans and in 1920. Her idea was adopted as the U.S. national emblem of remembrance.

There was a strong urge amongst civilians to show that they remembered the people who had given their lives for peace and freedom and the poppy soon became accepted world wide as a symbol of remembrance.

In 1922, Major George Howson, a young infantry officer, formed the Disabled Society, to help provide work for wounded ex-Service men and women from the First World War. He suggested to the British Legion that members of the Disabled Society could make the poppies and subsequently the Poppy Factory was founded in Richmond on Thames. The original poppy was designed so that workers with a disability could easily assemble it and this principle remains today.

The factory produces a whole range of poppies, wreaths and commemorative crosses, but it is the basic model – the red paper petal and green paper leaf attached by a black plastic button to a green plastic stem – which is the foundation of the entire act of national remembrance. And this year the factory has received orders for an astonishing 38 million of them. That is two million up on last year and nearly ten million up on ten years ago, but this does not beat the all-time high of 45 million poppies!

The Royal British Legion, Melbourn Branch

Patrick Parkinson, is the present Chairman and Secretary and Molly Chamberlain, Vice Chairman of the Melbourn Branch. Shirley Cunningham is Treasurer of the Women’s Branch for the Cambridge Area.

Patrick Parkinson is no stranger to parades and marching. A former member of the Northamptonshire Regiment, he was also a bandsman for St. John’s Ambulance, representing Hertfordshire as drum major and Bandmaster at their Hyde Park Centenary. Pauline Parkinson represents Melbourn & Meldreth as Standard Bearer for the RBL Women’s Section (founded in Melbourn in 1937).

Molly Chamberlain is escort to the standard bearer and has taken part in just about every service at The Cross since 1947.

Shirley Cunningham is unable to attend the service at The Cross in Melbourn as she is always on duty at the cenotaph in Cambridge where she lays a wreath as Treasurer of the Cambridge area.

There are familiar figures at The Cross each year; these include Don Littlechild and Reg Luff. Don has been a member of the Legion since the end of the war and has sold poppies for 43 years! He was anxious for me to record that selling the poppies is the easy part – it is the organisers who work for months before the November event, ordering the poppies and wreaths and arranging rotas and distribution lists. Reg, who served with the First Army in North Africa, Egypt and Palestine, has been a member of the Legion since 1982, and served as Treasurer and Parade Marshal for over 20 years.

These Melbourn folk and others that I have not had room to mention, are proud of the parts they play in continuing the tradition of Remembrance in the village.

The British Legion Hut in Melbourn stood at 82 High Street – now a small public garden with seats. Provided by Sir Stanley Fordham, it was originally for use as a Boys Club, but later it became the headquarters of the Legion.

Patrick Parkinson makes an impassioned plea for people to come forward to join the Legion with a particular view to taking office. The membership at the moment stands at some 50 people, pretty equally divided between the sexes. There is no President of the Melbourn branch at the moment.

Let us hope that The Royal British Legion continues to flourish in Melbourn. Mavis Howard

The Remembrance Day Parade and Service held every year at The Cross, on the Sunday nearest 11th November. A smaller ceremony is also held on the actual day. In former days it was a very big parade, a marching band and all the uniformed groups – Boys and Girls Brigade, Guides, Brownies, Scouts, Cubs and the Army Cadet Corps, marched from the Village College to The Cross.