Poppies for the Lost of Ness

Those of you who follow Homeschool on the Croft on Facebook will remember how, just a few weeks ago, our district was plunged into sadness following the tragic death of one of our young men. I had never met the boy, but in a place like Ness, sadness is contagious. There is always some connection with a family who suffers loss: you may have played football with the lad; or been at school with the parents. Maybe your neighbour is a close relative, or your family sat near the family in church. 

However tenuous, there is always some link, and if not a link that can be articulated, then the simple fact that "we're all from Ness" is enough.

That week saw a gloom descend over Ness. We all felt it, and it followed us through our daily tasks and chores. 

At the time, I remember thinking of what it must have been like in Ness during the Great War and the Second World War. There were no bombs falling on the people, that's true, but bad news was only a knock on the door from them. When that fateful telegram arrived with the words, 

We regret to inform you ....

Oh, the pain.

Yes, of course the pain for the family isn't to be compared with the general pain the district feels when we lose someone tragically. But knowing how that one death affected Ness last month made me think of how the whole of Ness must have ached, month after month, and year after year, for the duration of the two World Wars.


This month sees the anniversary of the beginning of WW1. Our nation declared war on Germany on August 4th, 1914, and our local historical society, Comunn Eachdraidh Nis had the wonderful idea of placing a commemorative poppy at the crofts and homes where lives were lost in combat during these years.

Our war memorial in Ness, naming those lost in both World Wars

Part of the village of Habost - where we live - on the memorial

The house numbers are in the furthest left column. 

Take a look. House number 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 16 (yes, they lost two sons), 17, 18a, 18a, 19, 19 (again, two lost from each of these homes) .... and so the list goes on.

It makes for painful reading

And so, at each of these crofts, and at all the crofts in this part of Lewis, poppies have been placed and will remain until the the hundredth anniversary of the end of this Great, and terrible, War.

This is where the Builder grew up. Like most of his generation, he grew up hearing nothing of what life was like at the time of the two World Wars. Painful memories were boxed away. The man lost here was 32 when he was killed, whilst serving with the Royal Navy Reserves.

Follow me from his family home on a short journey along the road ...

Right next door, this house now lies empty, but almost a hundred years ago, tears were being shed here for two beloved sons, both lost whilst serving with the Seaforth Highlanders. They were aged just 20 and 22.

Just two doors down from here. Another poppy.

Right next door. Another poppy. Another life lost.

And immediately next door. 

And, once again, right next door...

That is just in the space of a hundred yards or so. This is simply a sample of what our district looks like now. Who can begin to imagine the pain and sorrow that must have enveloped our community during these years? What a disservice we do to their memory, and to the liberty they were able to secure for us, if we ever forget.

In houses that now lie empty, in others where new generations of families now live, on crofts that now show only the remains of stones which once sheltered growing families, each and every poppy is a reminder that

Freedom is never free.

Remembrance Day ... Let Us Never Forget

Here, in Ness, we had our annual Service of Remembrance today. I have attended each one of these Remembrance Day services since coming back to the island, and have taken our children along each year too. I am so glad to see more children and young folk attending these past few years. It is so important that our children are taught to have some sense of appreciation for what the young men of this community did all these years ago. I pray none of the children I saw there today have to endure what many from their grandfathers' and great-grandfathers' generations had to endure. 

I am also thankful that a committee was set up in Ness a number of years ago to erect a memorial with the names of all who were lost from this community in service to their country.

One of our local ministers spoke from the words in John 15:13, "Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends". Having spoken of the great sacrifice that so many made for the sake of fellow soldiers, of king and country, and of family and freedom, he spoke of the greatest sacrifice that was ever made ... the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is true, as he said, that we do no dishonour to the memory of the fallen when we move from speaking of their sacrifice to the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who died that all those who believe on Him may have eternal salvation, and unspeakable freedom.

As always, a number of wreaths were laid. This photo shows a cadet laying a wreath on behalf of the Territorial Army.

As the service came to an end, the rainbow which had hovered throughout our time there, became a full arc, reminding us of our covenant-keeping God.

On the third from the right here is a man whose grandfather was lost in the Iolaire disaster. If you don't know the story, please read a post I wrote some time ago about the Iolaire.

I took this photo tonight. The sun has set and nobody is left around the memorial. It will be another year before the next Remembrance Day service, but let us commit to one thing: Let us never forget.

Our Local Remembrance Day ...

I'm an emotional wreck.


This year, like every year, we attended our local Remembrance Day service, held at the monument in our district.

As always, I cried. 

I wept thinking of boys (because that's what many of them were: boys. Boys, but the best of men) who left their homes and their families in 1914, and then again in 1939. Some of them left full of  bravado; others left with realistic fear. But they joined up, did their duty. 

During the First World War, Scotland lost more than double the number of men, per head of population, in comparison with the UK as a whole. I don't have the figures for the islands, but I have been told that we lost more (again, per head of population) than anywhere else in Scotland. Our losses were huge, and in a close community like we have, nobody was unaffected by the deaths suffered during these wars.

But what often gets to me more than anything else is this:

They left home; some of them suffered unspeakable horrors; they fought alongside fellow soldiers whom they grew to love, and who became their family, only to see many of them die beside them; they suffered extreme cold, extreme heat, extremes of every description; they lived in constant fear, but bravely conducted all the operations they had to; they had their senses bombarded daily with the sounds of bombs blasting close by, of bullets whizzing, of  screams of agony from injured and dying comrades.

All that, and so much more. Because words cannot properly convey loneliness and fear - especially the words of a writer who knows nothing of what these boys went through.

And what happened in 1918 and in 1945 when it was time for them to come home?

Well, they came home. They worked. They married and raised families. They carried on working. They asked for nothing. They claimed no compensation; they sought no pity; the attended no therapists.

Their bravery didn't end when the war ended. Their actions for the rest of their lives speak volumes that I can not articulate. How many memories they must have lived with. How many conversations they must have had in the privacy of their own minds and hearts. How many tears were shed behind closed doors? We will never know. It was not their way to draw attention to themselves.

Their way was, and is, the way of duty. 

Of honour. 

Today, these young cadets stood at our memorial. I pray none of them will have to endure the horrors their grandfathers and great-grandfathers endured.

This man, one of only two Ness men left with us who could have attended today, laid a wreath. Over sixty years have passed since he experienced the horrors of war, and yet he struggled with his emotions as he laid the wreath.

I spoke to him afterwards and he said he almost didn't make it. He almost broke down. Oh, what memories are stored in this man's mind.

This lady's uncle was lost in the Iolaire disaster. I posted about that horrific night here. Her mother was ten, and she always remembered the excitement of that night, the anticipation of her older brother's imminent return. He was 20 years of age, and had been fighting for years.

Can any of us even begin to imagine what that family went through? All that anticipation, just for the joy of the long-awaited meeting to be snatched from them at the last minute.

Tears? 

You're dead right. 

And once again, let us never forget....

Freedom is not free.

Let us never take it for granted.

We Will Remember Them

We Will Remember Them

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, 

We will remember them.

Some of my favourite photos from this year's Remembrance Day...

Today, we remember our troops who have been lost during the two World Wars, and those lost in wars since.

Our serving troops, though, are in my prayers every day of life. I pray they'd be kept safe; and that they would come to know God as their God and their Saviour. I pray, too, that our leaders would be given wisdom every day, and that our troops - precious sons, husbands and fathers to their families - would never be sent into danger unnecessarily.

A Sad, Sad Story

I am warning you all now: you will need your Kleenex. I really mean it. Have a read of this.


I took a wander up to our local War Memorial this morning. 

It was built only a few years ago to honour the memory of the boys from Ness, who died during the First World War, and the Second World War.

Along with the two World Wars, there are men's names from the Iolaire Disaster.

Take a look at this. These names are all from only one village: the village I grew up in.

Try and imagine a district made up of one village after another. Every house is built right next door to its neighbour. Their crofts run parallel to each other. The wives of the village have known each other almost all of their lives; the children have all grown up together; the men were boys playing together until only recently. There is nobody in the village who is not connected, either by blood or by friendship, with every other person in the village.

When a family lost a member, the whole village mourned.

And so, try and imagine what the years 1914 to 1918 were like for these families.

Every mother must have waited every day for news. How they must have dreaded an official envelope.

We regret to inform you....

Oh, the agony of these words. When they came, every household would join in grief. They would 'mourn with those who mourned'. None would be unaffected.

And then the 11th day of November, 1918 arrives.

Peace.

Many mothers would mingle tears of sadness for a son they had lost in the war with tears of joy that their second son was on his way home. Those who had lost none would praise God and await their loved ones' arrival.

Four long years: sons who had left as boys would return as men. Most of them would never speak of what they experienced. 

And so mothers prepared food. Their boys were returning on New Year's Day, 1919.

Remember, Christmas was nothing to us islanders, but New Year was a major time of family get-togethers, of giving thanks to God, and of celebration.

Never was there more cause for celebration than this New Year's Day. Long lost sons, brothers and fathers would sit at their family table, sharing their meal for the first time in nearly four years with those whom they loved. What anticipation.

And so our boys boarded the ship that would take them to Stornoway. 

What excitement. Maybe a great deal of chattering hid the mixed emotions they themselves were battling. But nothing mattered compared with this: they were almost home.

Almost 300 Lewismen boarded the Iolaire. 

While mothers kept food warm, and looked expectantly for the moment their sons would walk in the door, there was disaster.

The Iolaire was less than a mile - picture it: less than one mile - from Stornoway Harbour when she hit rocks and began to sink.

Almost three hundred had boarded the ship. There were only 79 survivors.

Fathers who had travelled to Stornoway to meet their sons were to spend the night combing the shoreline looking for the bodies of loved ones. 

Most families, who had begun that day with such eagerness and anticipation, ended it with unspeakable sorrow.

That is why, on the plaque (above), showing those who were lost during the Great War from Swainbost, there are five - yes, five - who were lost on 1:1:19.

Weeks after peace had been declared. Within yards of their home shore. They were lost. Five - just from this village.

Did you notice number 13? Not one, but two brothers, lost that night.

They'd come through the hardship and dangers of the Great War, and yet never made it home.

I have no idea how these mothers bore this tragedy. My heart aches every time I read of it, write of it, or speak of it. I think there can be few sadder stories in all of history. 

Remembrance Day

photo from Wikipedia

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

At 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare.


Today at 11am, we will fall silent for our 2 minute silence at home.


We will praise God for our freedom.


We will pray for families who grieve more recent losses in more recent battles.


We will never forget. We will remember them.