Articles The Unveiling of The Sherwood Foresters
Western Front Memorial at Tyne Cot 24th October 2009 by Maj John Cotterill MBE
The Lord Lieutenants unveil the Plaque flanked by the We’ll remember Pops re-enactment society from Poperinghe
The Colour Party
Cliff Housley, Eddy Edwards and John Cotterill help stonemason Mark Eaton select the Derbyshire stone for the Memorial
Until 2009, nowhere on the Western Front did a memorial exist to The Sherwood Foresters who fell there between 1914 and 1918. They numbered over 11,000, a number that dwarfs all the other fatalities in all other conflicts in the history of the Regiment. That has now been rectified and the many visitors and pilgrims who visit the Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery will now find a new memorial in Derbyshire stone adjacent to the path that leads from the cemetery to the visitor centre. The venue was chosen because approximately a quarter of the Regiment’s Great War casualties fell in the Ypres Salient.
The idea of a memorial was born during a visit to Ypres for the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele in 2007 by Maj John Cotterill, Mr Cliff Housley and Mr Eddy Edwards. The local commune of Zonnebeke was immediately supportive. Their decision to allow the memorial to be erected on their land was instant and reflected the wholehearted support which they gave to the project throughout. Over £20,000 was raised far more quickly than anticipated. This was achieved by the hard work of Cliff Housley who wrote to 427 civic bodies in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire including
94 October 2010
all of the parish councils. The letters included a list of Foresters killed in the Great War from each parish. This individual approach meant that contributions for the memorial really did come from every single part of the two counties.
The memorial was carved from a specially selected piece of Derbyshire stone by Mark Eaton in a small, wooded quarry up above Youlgrave. A month before the unveiling ceremony, Richard, Cliff and Eddy went out to Belgium to erect the memorial and to install a temporary Sherwood Foresters Exhibition in the Passchendaele Memorial Museum in Zonnebeke. They took out, also, a Derbyshire stone plaque carved with symbols of the Regiment’s Western Front years which we were to present to the Commune of Zonnebeke.
On the weekend of 23 – 25 October 2009, over five hundred people travelled from the East Midlands especially for the unveiling and associated commemorative events. On the Friday evening there was a Sherwood Forester sponsored Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres. During the ceremony, many of the Mayors and Council Chairmen who had travelled over to Belgium laid wreathes on behalf of the people from their
city, town or parish. On a cold, wet and blustery Saturday morning the memorial was unveiled jointly by the Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, Sir Andrew Buchanan, and the Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire, Mr Willie Tucker. A uniformed military presence at the ceremony was in the form of the Colour Party of the 2nd Battalion, newly returned from Afghanistan, and the Band of The Mercian Regiment, whilst the choir and orchestra of Repton School and the Buglers of the Last Post Association added to the dignity of the occasion. A large contingent from Repton School was in Ypres to dedicate a plaque in St George’s Anglican Church to the Old Reptonians who fell in the Great War.
During the ceremony, two youngsters, Aimee Halliwell from Melbourne, Derbyshire, and Robert Keighery from Arnold, Nottinghamshire, read out their thoughts about their ancestors, Pte Archibald Orme and Pte Thomas Bramer, who were killed fighting in the ranks of the 1st and 2nd Battalions respectively. The ceremony was recorded for those unable to attend in person by Andy Smart of The Nottingham Evening Post, James Roberson of BBC TV East Midlands and Joy Hales of Derbyshire Life.
The Mercian Eagle
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164