This morning we attended the annual Remembrance Day service in the village park (this being the closest Sunday to Armistice Day, on 11 November.) It is an interesting event as it appears to be the occasion more than any other that brings together the whole village. The weather was fine today, although fairly cold, but I don’t think that this accounts fully for the high turnout.
In fact, it is my impression that the attendance on these occasions has grown steadily over the twenty years or so during which we have lived in the village. From a couple of hundred gathered around the war memorial I am sure that the crowd has now reached a thousand. The growing importance attached to the occasion is witnessed by the fact that this morning for the first time we are given printed orders of service, and there was a proper P/A system, so that everybody could hear properly, however far from the centre of the action they were compelled to stand. This is curious, of course, in view of the fact that there can be very few attendees who actually served in the Second World War–although there were a few people there who appeared to have more recent military connections, wearing either forces headgear or medals.
One event stood out for me as demanding comment. Among the music played while the wreaths were laid was Paul McCartney’s Let it be. The exact relevance of this to the occasion I find puzzling, but as I stood there in the crowd a thought did occur to me. It is evident that as artists we have no control over the significance attributed to our work, and the uses to which it is put. Once it is out there it is the public (or patrons) who decide whether it has meaning, and what part it will play in their lives. I doubt very much that Paul had Remembrance Day in mind when he wrote it, but I am prepared to bet that from now on it will be a regular feature of the wreath-laying ceremony, for reasons that will probably always remain obscure. But that’s art, isn’t it?