Youth Participation: First World War Commemorations

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I thank the Minister for his time.

It probably does not take me to alert the House and the nation to the fact that we are rapidly approaching the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of world war one, which will unfurl four years of solemn remembrances of different events. None of us would disagree that it is important that we remember and commemorate, but equally important is how we commemorate and what we do as part of the commemoration. That matters as part of our sense of national identity.

For our close allies such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, sites such as Vimy ridge and Gallipoli are not just sites of memory or commemoration, but part of a national story, not of constitutional development so much as the birth of real nationhood—of real people losing their lives on the battlefield. That is why nations truly came into being; it is not just that they received a constitutional charter.

I pay tribute to what the Government have already announced as part of the commemorations of world war one, to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who has chaired a group, and to the Minister’s work. I pay particular tribute to the notion of spending of £5.3 million on sending children to visit the battlefields, not least because my own constituency is a hotbed of school travel—bizarrely, it is our one growth industry. I know that it is a particular pleasure to the WST school travel trust and the school travel forum.

I went on such a journey for the first time last autumn. I studied history at university and I have studied the period, so I have always wanted to go and see what I had been studying. I had never been; I have driven past quickly on the motorway, if ever at all.

What the visit brought home to me was that the work of the Imperial War Graves Commission is the one of the greatest publicly funded pieces of civil art ever undertaken in the history of humanity. We do not fully appreciate that in this country. The work of Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Reginald Blomfield is testament to the ability of architecture to inspire emotion and encapsulate complex feelings. Even to this day, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is one of the best run and best presented of our public bodies.

It is hard not to feel a sense of hopelessness when standing at a memorial such as the one at Thiepval—those grand Indo-Saracenic arches. All the schoolchildren were running around and making noise. Then the rain started to fall and they all scattered to the shelter of the visitors centre. I was left in the silence of a Somme morning—misty and cloudy—and I had a real sense of the tragedy of the loss of 20,000 people in one day. It is hard to imagine just how many people that is, but that is what occurred. At a time when we are once again debating what should be in our history curriculum, 1 July 1916 rarely seems to feature as a focal point for our national story, yet I believe it should be at the heart of what we think about when we study history.

I was fascinated and inspired by Thiepval, but I also visited some of the Canadian sites at Beaumont-Hamel and Vimy ridge, to which I referred earlier. The reason why I secured today’s debate is to promote a Canadian idea that we could learn from. Visitors to those two Canadian sites are greeted by a young Canadian student, who is there for four months, and explains what is available to people of all ages, what they could do on their visit, why the location is there and what it means to Canadians.

There is an interesting contrast with Thiepval. We have put great effort into an excellent visitors centre there, which I cannot praise highly enough, but on arrival, people are not greeted by a young person or someone who can explain to them why the place matters. For visiting schoolchildren, being welcomed by someone of their own age group would connect them more to what they are about to see; it is not just a theme park, but something that someone of their own age thinks is sufficiently important that they are spending a long time there welcoming people.

The scheme might also benefit more elderly visitors, who often visit battlefield sites. Perhaps it is unfair to cite reported speech, but we often hear criticisms such as, “Oh, the children run around. They don’t show respect. They don’t understand what they are coming to see.” I do not think that that is true, but such a scheme would encourage older generations to think that what they had done in world war two and indeed in world war one was not in vain, because younger generations were still explaining it to their children and their children’s children.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way on an important educational and historical issue. The first world war is important in Northern Ireland. The 36th (Ulster) Division suffered and gave greatly at the battle of the Somme. In Northern Ireland, we have tried to bring both communities together on the back of the story about the battle of the Somme. There were Ulster divisions, but there were also Irish divisions that died and fought together in the first world war. It is a good historical issue.

The Bowtown community group in Newtownards try to educate young people on the estate about the importance of the first world war and to bring together other communities, so that nationalists and Unionists can look at what happened in the first world war together.

[Paul Maynard]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s observation is replicated in all our constituencies, up and down the country. Everywhere we look, we can find examples where we utilise world war one as a means of communicating across generations.

It would be naive of me to pretend that the Canadian model is cost-free. As we approach the Budget, cost considerations become all the more important. The cost of the Canadian scheme is roughly £400,000 per annum, of which about three fifths are salaries for the guides. University students are subsidised for four-month stays at the two sites. The Canadian Government own accommodation in Arras where students can lodge, and air fares are refunded on the successful completion of the course. The Veterans Minister, Steven Blaney, wrote to me:

“Without a doubt, the student guides’ enthusiasm serves as an inspiration to the many school and other tour groups that visit Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel each year, as well as to their peers when they return to Canada.”

That is an angle that I have not yet touched on. Once someone has served the four-month internship, they can return home and spread the message of what they have done. That is doubly welcome.

We have an eminently sensible opportunity to build on what the Government are already doing with the National Citizen Service—a chance to recruit young people who are between A-level and university or other employment to spend a set period of time at one of the major memorials to the missing, to welcome visitors, explain the facilities and the opportunities available and to try to connect each visitor with their own experience of what they are about to see. What connects them to the location?

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

One of the key things that young people notice when they go to such cemeteries is the age of the people slumbering beneath the earth. That has a dramatic impact on them, especially when they consider that often they are older than the poor fellow beneath the ground.

[Paul Maynard]

It is fair to say that before people visit one of the sites, they never quite know what their response will be. Many young people are often surprised by what they discover there and even by what they discover in themselves. They are emotional visits, and they should be.

It is essential that we do all we can to maintain the golden thread of remembrance. We have now reached the point when the last living veteran of world war one is no longer with us. He passed away last year.

[Bob Stewart]

In this country.

[Paul Maynard]

Indeed. In not so many years’ time, that will also be true of the second world war. We do not want to reach the stage when we have forgotten our past. I want places such as Thiepval to have as important a part in our national story as Gallipoli and Vimy do in other countries’ national stories.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I am hugely impressed by my hon. Friend’s speech and the points he is making. Does he agree that as well as encouraging people to see those sites overseas, we should celebrate the heritage connected with the first world war in our towns and cities? For instance, Gheluvelt park in Worcester commemorates the battle in which the Worcestershire Regiment stopped the German advance and achieved great success. We should ensure that we engage young people in understanding the relevance today of the monuments that exist in towns and cities throughout the country.

[Paul Maynard]

I entirely take the point made by my hon. Friend, who has pre-empted my final comments. Every time I return to my constituency, I get off at Preston station, and I tend to get out of the carriage in front of the waiting room, above which is a plaque to the Pals, because that is where the feeding station was during world war one. Every time I get off the train, I am confronted by that memorial.

The biggest issue in the first few weeks after I was elected was the desecration of the cenotaph in Blackpool. That got me interested in the protection of war memorials, and in ensuring that they have better statutory protection. A common theme in all our constituencies is that how we commemorate and how we remember matters.

I hope that the Minister will take away my ideas. I believe that he already has a hard copy of my letter from Canada, which I hope he will consider. It may be too soon to do it in time for 2014, but I hope that in years to come we can make progress towards better involving our young people in meeting and greeting at those important sites.