Poppy wreaths were laid at our local villages’ war memorials on Thursday November 11th and as part of Remembrance services on Sunday November 14th. At Horham a wreath was laid containing a poppy for each of the 600-plus men of the 95th Bomb Group who lost their lives in WW2 flying out of Horham. A short service was also led by Revd John McCracken on Friday November 19th at the B-17 memorial in Redlingfield to commemorate the anniversary of the crash in which 10 men of the 95th lost their lives in Redlingfield. The names of those who died there at 8.30am on the morning of 19th November 1943 were read and a wreath, made by Beverley Abbott, was laid. After a two-minute silence the poem High Flight (see below) was read.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
