Saturday 9 October 2010

Burma Star Northern Ireland

I was at the Service for the laying-up of the Burma Star Northern Ireland Standard on Sunday 3rd October 2010 in St. Anne's Cathedral Belfast, what a wonderful turnout, the church was full and what beautiful weather, the sun shone all day and the sermon by Dean Houston McKelvey was very very interesting and moving, you can go to the St. Anne's site or mine and read his words, people were very moved as this is the end of all Burma Star gatherings in Northern Ireland for our soldiers and to remember the many men and boys who left their homes in Belfast and all over Northern Ireland and never came home again

When you go home, tell them of us and say
for your tomorrow - we gave our today


how poignant and how unfortunate that they have already been forgotten, forgotten by the media, by our own local media the Belfast Telegraph in particular, and the BBC especially, they did a piece about my father Jim Lennon, he was led to believe, as were other people involved in the organising of Sundays service that there would be full coverage of the service and all the men and guests, many who travelled from England and one lady in particular who travelled here all the way from Canada............

my father is embarrassed that the coverage was totally of him, there was a brief glance inside the cathedral and the whole item lasted 3 minutes..........they spent 3 hours at my fathers home and followed him around inside St. Anne's for an hour and a half and only a few seconds shown on the local evening news programme the News Letter had a nice but small article about the service and I believe some local radio stations mentioned it briefly

what happened? I know there has been quite a bit about Services and Remembrance and ceremonies this year but this is the END of the Burma Star in Northern Ireland, doesn't anybody but the families of these men care?

.....you can go to this page on my site and look at the photographs of what I think was a "perfect day" but it will be the last day for the Burma Star Veterans...

http://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/8th_belfast_haa_regt_BurmaStar2010.htm

Mary Lennon