The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Words we know so well, even if the rest of Binyon’s poem is less familiar.  What corporate grief must he have summed up on those words for a nation that had lost so very many of its young men.   We have six war graves in the Additional Burial Ground from the 1st World War, four of whose occupants we know died at 18 or 19, and many more names are commemorated on the War Memorial.

The War Graves Commission oversees all graves of those who died in a military conflict or action and tries to make sure they are decently cared for.   The inscriptions offer tantalising details but don’t fill in the story – if they died in action how were they brought home?  So many of our soldiers still lie in Flanders fields, how did these men come home?  Only Geoffrey Craig Rose’s memorial plainly states that, wounded in Flanders in December, he was brought home and didn’t die till February.  And curiously Francis Gabriel Ellerton was ‘accidentally’ killed whilst serving King and country – friendly fire?  An accident with a firearm or a grenade?  We know so little about them.  Five of them were born or lived in Hampstead at some time, one served with the Metropolitan police so may have lived or worked here, but the others?   So far research has uncovered no connection at all – except that here they are.

The War Memorials Trust takes a similar interest in war memorials.  Ours has attracted attention a few times in recent years – once because of its alarming tilt which had to be straightened before it toppled taking the wall with it and now because the inscriptions are wearing away and need to be recut.  The faculty for this has been granted and Camden will be carrying out the work.  Once annually the focus for Camden’s civic ceremony, in the last 15 years or so this has transferred to a church in the mayor’s constituency, and so it only occasionally occurs that we share our Service of Remembrance with all of Camden.   A ceremony is also held on Remembrance Day itself at the memorial by the Whitestone Pond.  In this way Hampstead remembers its war dead, honouring their memory and acknowledging their sacrifice

For your tomorrow we gave our today
 [attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds]

Of course we think globally at the Remembrance Sunday services and so we should because wars go on and people go on dying but this year think locally too – think of
                   
Pilot Officer Peter Francis Lomax
Major George Harvest,  London Rifle Brigade
2nd Lieut. Geoffrey Craig Rose, 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders
Francis Gabriel Ellerton, Royal Engineers
Lieut. Angus Campbell MC, Royal Engineers
Captain John Richard Saythe McClure, Royal Engineers
2nd Lieut Anthony Blyton Beesley RAF,
Lieut. Bdr Charles James Piper MM, Royal Artillery

who died on active service in wars in the last century and are buried in the ABG, and all those commemorated on the War Memorial – Hampstead residents who didn’t make it home.

Just another aspect of our requirement to care for the churchyard perhaps, or another strand of local history.  
We put poppies on the War Memorial on Remembrance Sunday.  No one puts poppies on the graves.