86 Remembering the Dead, The Cenotaph
Neil Oliver: News, Comment, History
Fat Belly Films
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2022
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode we are walking down Whitehall, one of London’s most famous streets, to remember the dead of the First World War.
Fabian Ware joined the British army at the outbreak of the war, but because he was 45 years old, the authorities would let him fight on the front line and put him in charge of a mobile ambulance unit instead.
Appalled by the number of casualties and troubled that the dead were not being recorded properly he began keeping note. On account of his efforts, the organization now called the Commonwealth War Graves Commission came into existence. The process of remembrance began.
11 November 1919 was the first anniversary of the war’s end. It was marked with the construction of a temporary memorial called the Cenotaph on Whitehall, a march of remembrance and the return of the Unknown Soldier. The outpouring of emotion at this event and the public’s actions demanded that the temporary Cenotaph be made permanent. And across the whole of the British Isles collective grief propelled the largest public art project ever seen as communities took it upon themselves to build their own local memorials to remember all the dead.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The 15 million pound Lotto Super Saturday jackpot must be won this Saturday. |
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| 0:27.6 | Hello fellow time travellers I hope you're well. Just before today's episode I want to let you know a bit about my Patreon site which helps support the making of this podcast. Every week on that patron site there's a brand new |
| 0:33.9 | vaudcast which I film here at my home in Stirling. There's also a great archive of |
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| 0:46.8 | It would be great to have as many of you as possible along for the ride. |
| 0:51.0 | Okay, now it's time to set off for White Hall in London, to pause and to remember. |
| 0:57.2 | In this week's love letter to the British Isles, cue the music. Objects contain absent people and if ever there were absent people it's the millions that were harvested by the First World War. |
| 1:21.0 | In this episode we follow the road leading to the remembrance of the Great War. |
| 1:27.0 | Appalled by the number of casualties he was seeing on the front line and troubled that those dead were not being recorded properly. |
| 1:36.4 | One man began to keep note. |
| 1:39.9 | The 11th of November 1919 was the first anniversary of the war's end. |
| 1:46.0 | A temporary memorial of remembrance to mark the fallen was raised. An outpouring of grief and the public's actions ensured it was made permanent and a nation |
| 1:58.5 | promise thereby never to forget. |
| 2:10.0 | I'm stepping out across Britain to discover 100 remarkable places that have shaped you, me, and the whole world. I'm Neil Oliver, and this is my love letter to the British Isles. Hi Neil, in the last episode we travelled with you to meet five lost souls, five brave brothers |
| 2:30.8 | who set off to war and never returned. Where are we this week? |
| 2:37.0 | Yes, Paul, last week was a snapshot of the tragic impact the war had on one solitary family, the Soles family from Gloucestershire. |
... |
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