First World War: Commemorations

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, there could not have been a better person to introduce this important debate than my noble friend Lord Black. Our sense of indebtedness to him is substantial. As he explained, he is closely involved in the work of the Royal College of Music and the Imperial War Museum, both of which benefit greatly from his dedicated support.

The Royal College of Music, working alongside other academic institutions and orchestras up and down the land, will surely help us to improve our understanding of the impact of the war on British music—one of its least examined aspects. Almost a generation of composers was killed. Those who survived were changed forever, whether or not they fought. Think of Elgar. The break with Germany must have been traumatic for him. He owed so much, as did many of his lesser known contemporaries, to German traditions. Deep friendships were suddenly sundered. My noble friend Lord Black has referred to the tragic case of Sir Edgar Speyer, who did so much for Britain before 1914. A strong sense of kindred united the two countries almost up until the point when it was severed. In 1900, the destination most favoured by British people travelling abroad was Berlin.

The sudden termination of Anglo-German accord and the catastrophic loss of life that followed will be recalled forever through the work of poets like Sassoon and Owen, who have entered the mainstream of our culture and become known to millions, evoking the successive generations’ mingled feelings of grief and gratitude evoked for us this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Jones, feelings that must remain always in our collective consciousness:

“Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead”.

Alongside such haunting lines of verse we need to hear more of the poignant music that is also a profoundly important part of our heritage—for example, the superb choral memorial “Morning Heroes”, composed by Arthur Bliss in honour of his dead friends. We must remember and commemorate during these four centenary years that have just begun.

I hope that the Minister will give us a clear indication of the Government’s support for our museums, galleries, orchestras and other institutions as they continue and, I hope, expand their tributes to our country’s wartime poets, artists and musicians. He will no doubt wish to explain to the House on future occasions—in the Chamber itself, I trust—how the Government’s plans have been implemented and with what success.

Such further debates would give us other opportunities to discuss our debt to those who gave so much to their country. Should we not turn in due course to the very important role played by women during the war? All parts of our country need to be borne in mind. I am concerned that the people of Northern Ireland may have access to less music in their concert halls at this time of commemoration because of the financial difficulties facing the Ulster Orchestra, the Province’s only professional orchestra. I have already drawn the issue to the attention of the Minister in the hope that he will encourage the BBC to become more fully involved in the search for a solution. Regrettably, he told me that he had no plans to do so but perhaps he will look again at the matter.

Some 200,000 Irishmen from south and north fought in the First World War. In its cultural contribution, Ireland was no less important. Two Irishmen, both famous painters before 1914, were prominent among the official war artists: John Lavery from Belfast and William Orpen from Dublin. Lavery was unable to travel to the front on grounds of age and health, and tended to deprecate his substantial volume of war work depicting ships at sea and life on the home front as unduly detached from the cruel reality of war. Orpen, a younger man, went to the front, where he captured the reality of suffering and hardship in a remarkable series of pictures that were austere and pitiless in character. They serve as reminders of the varied manner in which both parts of Ireland contributed to the war.

Some of Orpen’s finest pictures form part of the largest exhibition of war art for a century which is currently on display at the Imperial War Museum. Founded in 1917, the museum is rightly at the forefront of our centenary commemorations and is linked to organisations throughout the country through its flourishing centenary partnership scheme. Together, and in close association with the Government, they must sustain the high standards that they have set and maintain the momentum of commemoration until 2018, reinforcing the insistent calls for remembrance of suffering imparted to us by the war poets:

“No mockeries now for them; nor prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires”.