Remembrance Jaw

by Clare Jarmy, Bedales Teacher of Philosophy and Religious Studies

2011 Remembrance Jaw

“something understood” – George Herbert, Prayer
Bedales lacks pews, choir stalls, and an altar, but it does not lack a spiritual core. These were the sentiments of Keith Budge following Remembrance Jaw  on Wedenesday 9th November, 2011. Though we have no chapel, there was, as the George Herbert poem expresses it, “something understood”.

Remembrance Jaw is one of the most solemn occasions in the school calendar, one where we honour all those who went to war; who go to war. This year, our theme was of the trust placed by those fighting: trust in the authorities who deploy troops and determine their orders; trust in comrades; trust that this war is for something for which it is worth risking one’s life.

Reflecting the importance and the solemnity of the events, many students chose to dress particularly smartly for this occasion, buying in to one of the Jaw traditions that the school has largely lost over the years. Looking out into the Quad, one was faced with a sea of quiet, attentive, respectful faces; students smartly-dressed and wearing poppies.

Jaw was introduced by Nick Gleed, who gave a very moving introduction, which set the tone for the evening. This was followed by an organ piece by Jehan Alain, a French composer who died during WW2 at the age of 29. This was played by Callum Anderson (Block 5). This piece, called Le Jardin Suspendu, provides us with a vision of heaven; with a vision of that which lies beyond; the transcendent. During this piece, Josh Grubb (Block 5) read an account from a soldier during WW1 of a walk undertaken with a gravedigger; a moving and deeply sad account. Amongst the stark, base imagery of this grim walk, the music provided the hope of something higher, something with the capacity to lift us out of such extraordinary stories of human sacrifice and to provide hope where there seems to be none.

Students were then drawn to reflect on the trust placed by those fighting and the authorities that send them. Siegfried Sassoon’s poem Base Details, read by Robin Allez (Block 5), reflects on a senior officer who talks of the war as a “scrap”, whilst reading the roll of honour in “the best hotel”. Young men trudge “up the line to death”, and he will “toddle safely home, and die – in bed”. Sassoon’s poem expresses a real bitterness for, and a disappointment with the authorities in charge of wartime strategy. To him, in a sense, they were a more tangible enemy.

The Last Post was played by Richard Ward, Deputy Head Boy, and two minutes silence was observed. After the reveille, The Head Boy, and the Head and Deputy Head Girls read those immortal lines:

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them.

Jaw finished with Elgar’s Nimrod from the Enigma Variations. An ever moving piece, the mood during handshaking was quiet, reflective and respectful. Despite the fact that the two world wars where whole generations were sent to fight are further and further back in time, students still recognised the importance of not letting any one of these people be forgotten.

2010 Remembrance Jaw

The Bedales Remembrance Jaw is an important annual gathering for the school community. Whilst an act of remembrance is obviously an appropriate memorial to the lives of those 88 or so men Bedales lost in the two world wars, it is an interesting phenomenon within the context of the founding principles of Bedales.
The school has famously never had a cadet force, unlike so many public schools. For Geoffrey Crump, writing in his book "Bedales since the war" (referring to the 1914-18 war), Bedales' somewhat pacifist roots were a major draw, after feeling that so many public schools had trained boys up to be officers, only for them to be killed in WW1.
If you take a trip to the ethics section of the Bedales Library, which is itself a memorial to Bedalians killed in the two world wars, you will see an entire shelf of books on the ethical question of whether war can ever be just.

But despite all of this, Bedalian boys were, of course, with thousands upon thousands of others, called up, and went to fight in both world wars, and just as with the schools that had cadet forces, Bedales also lost students, teachers and OBs in active combat, fighting on both sides.

The tone for the Jaw was set beautifully by Nick Gleed, the Director of Music, who spoke about how war is never a victory in the sense of being triumphant, but a victory of sacrifice. As we sang later it is a "love that never falters, a love that pays the price". This theme was continued and developed in the poem Vergissmeinnicht, by Keith Douglas, read by Keith Budge, in which the poet experiences the ambivalence of how to view a dead German soldier - is he a killer, or is he understood better as the sweetheart of a girl he left behind at home? There followed a piece by an old soldier John Hancox, writing four or five years ago about regrets he felt at failing to keep in touch with or offer condolences to the families of those he had known who had died.

There followed an Act of Remembrance itself, where sixth form student Richard Ward played the Last Post, which signalled the two minutes' silence, and the reveille, which signalled the end. Jaw finished with the Lacrymosa, the "day of tears" from Mozart's Requiem, peformed by the School Choir.

It is increasingly the case, of course, that students do not necessarily have a close family member that has been involved in a major conflict; it was the case ten or so years ago that it would be unheard of not to have a grandfather who had lived through it. The atmosphere amongst Bedalians that evening went to show that despite the fact that these personal links might fade over time, the reverence for the sacrifice made by people in a time of war remains strong.