First World War Commemoration

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

It is great to follow my colleague and friend from Lancashire, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard).

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) on introducing the debate. Like him, I declare an interest. I was a teacher of history for 37 years, but I reassure hon. Members that I could not find my teaching notes last night, so they are saved from that. I will address some of the challenges that have been laid out today.

The legacy of the first world war is not only war memorials, although they are important. In the Fleetwood part of my constituency, we have a memorial park that was built following the war. The friends of the memorial park, and their chairman Les Fletcher, have bid for a grant to get the whole park, including its gates, restored, which may be an opportunity.

Westfield war memorial village in Lancaster was constructed for disabled soldiers with funds raised from private money. If Members look at the official books on Westfield war memorial village, which still houses 189 residents, they might be amused to learn that, apparently, despite the money having been raised, the building of the village, shops and workplaces for disabled ex-soldiers was hindered by the Government, the Ministry of Labour and the trade unions. The village is still shining with people still living there. There are similar things in every constituency.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, when I watched the Iraq war—I was not then a Member of this place—I used to scream at the television, “Will these people please read some history?” or “Has anyone picked up the books and actually looked at the background?” Obviously, a standard comment is that people do not learn from history, but they could at least be informed about it.

My hon. Friend mentioned Syria, and I would also pinpoint Bosnia, where the whole shebang happened; it is where the archduke was assassinated. When people stand on that spot in Sarajevo, they think, “What has changed in Bosnia since then?” Four years ago, I met the grand mufti, the senior Muslim cleric, and his first words in the big mosque in Sarajevo were, “This mosque is the Emperor mosque. It was rebuilt by Emperor Franz Joseph, and the last time this country was run properly and efficiently was by the Habsburgs.” I have some sympathy with that. There are national and European lessons that we may need to address during this long centenary.

My other point, again to follow the challenge of my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland, is on the diversity of the troops who went to war. In the words of Baroness Warsi:

“Our boys weren’t just Tommies—they were Tariqs and Tajinders”.

When people go to the war graves, as I did a few months ago, they see the numbers; 140,000 troops from the Indian empire fought on the western front. When people see the Sikh memorials, the Jewish and Christian graves and the Muslim graves facing Mecca, they have respect for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is still reburying people. That is just amazing. Only a few months ago, I saw in the village of Hollebeke the graves of six Chinese people who died as part of the Chinese Labour Corps; a huge wreath had been laid by the Chinese Government.

The centenary we are commemorating has many national and international levels. In our own country, given the diversity and the challenges that it is creating at the moment, we have to bring in every part of Britain’s new communities because they were involved in the first world war; 1.2 million people from the Indian empire fought across Africa, the western front and the middle east.

I found a quote from a Muslim soldier when I was looking at some letters out there—I do not know how one reads it in one sense. He was writing back to his family in the then undivided India, and he put in the letter:

“What better occasion than this to show the loyalty of my family to the British Government?”

What a lesson that is to us today, given what we face. Many Members of Parliament for constituencies that perhaps lack the diversity of our major cities can still ensure that when we are in schools to talk about the first world war and when we are at the memorials, people know that a vast range of soldiers and workers from across the old British empire supported this country and saw us through to the end. That is a lesson that we need to be punching out there, and it is a lesson for all of us today. It still rides strongly and gives us a purpose as Members of Parliament.