Virtual Vacation

Yet England is not always dancing, we are reminded by Christopher Etchells: 'A lone trumpeter plays the Last Post on a lovely, sunny autumn day, cold with blue skies: Remembrance Sunday in Winchcombe in the Cotswolds. Hundreds of men, women, and children from town turn out each year in the main square for this remembrance of those who died (mainly) in World Wars I and II. In my opinion the whole ceremony is a bit of an uneasy mixture of military ceremony and religion; but regardless we should be thankful to those who died so we can live in freedom today - at least that's what I tell my children, who however I have not yet persuaded to attend. I'm always moved by the reading of names on the cenotaph; the list seems to go on forever yet the same family names survive in Winchcombe today. Then of course there is the Last Post: there's something especially poignant about this piece and it never fails to remind me of the waste and futility of war. If you listen carefully you can hear the church clock striking twelve towards the end of the piece. Lest we forget... Recorded with a Sony ICD-SX35 recorder.'