Canons Life / Autumn 2018
Commemorating WW1 COMMEMORATING THE CENTENARY OF THE ARMISTICE
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ach November, we have, as a School, traditionally marked the season of remembrance with a special assembly, but, in this particular year, we wanted to include more events and projects right across the NLCS community to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice in 1918.
From the start of term ‘There But Not There’ figures appeared in the school buildings and in the grounds – perspex outlines of First World War soldiers, like ‘ghosts’ - with one figure added each week so that, as we approached 11th November, there were eight figures in total, three of whom joined us for our Remembrance Assembly in the Hall on 9th November. Special displays of material from our own archives
and from the Imperial War Museum provided a stunning backdrop to events in the Library and a banner with ‘100’ marked out in red poppies drew us all into the season of remembrance. The Music and Drama departments joined forces to present a special programme of words and music from the Great War, showing how men and women of that grim and uncertain time found solace and inspiration in poetry, song and instrumental music, with poignant pieces, all performed with immense skill, insight and respect. We decided to focus on some of the lesser-known voices of the First World War, those of women, and of soldiers from far beyond our shores who fought alongside British soldiers in a war so distant from their homes. The distinguished author and historian, Mark Bostridge, came to give a talk on Vera Brittain, whose celebrated memoir Testament of Youth is a searing account
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of what it was like for a young, academic and spirited woman to live through the Great War and to lose her brother, fiancé and almost every young man she had ever MARK BOSTRIDGE known. The role played by women was also taken up by our Debating Society who revisited a powerful and controversial debate first held by NLCS pupils in 1918, that ‘This House would support the conscription of women.’ A century on, our students looked back to what girls might have said on both sides of the argument exactly one hundred years ago and their arguments and observations, set in the context of 1918, made us reflect on a very different society and world.
