Ansty Village Remembers
The Coronation of King Charles lll and Queen Camilla (posted 09-05-2023)
The Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Saturday May 6th marked the beginning of 3 days of pomp, pageantry, ceremony, entertainment and celebration. Whether you were in London to witness the scenes or watched it on television, the whole Coronation event was truly spectacular from start to finish. Sunday was, by contrast, sunny and warm and many communities were involved in the ‘Big Help Out’ with more star-studded and dazzling entertainment on television later. The Ansty Village Coronation Party took place on Monday, 8th May and brought friends, family and neighbours together to share friendship, food, and fun at the Ansty PYO farm shop. Their Majesties must have been pleased that so many people enjoyed these worthwhile and celebratory events.
Click here or on either image for our take on this truly memorable and historical occasion!
‘Her Promise Kept: Her Duty Done’ (19-09-2022)
For many, the late Queen Elizabeth was the one constant in a rapidly changing, turbulent world and a society which was changing beyond recognition and where the role of the monarchy itself sometimes came into question. The long reign of Queen Elizabeth II was marked by her extraordinary sense of duty and her determination to dedicate her life to her peoples. Click on the image for our reflections of the past eleven days.
The End of an Era. (08-09-2022)
It is with great sadness that we all received the announcement from Buckingham Palace that Queen Elizabeth II had died peacefully on the afternoon of September 8th at Balmoral, in Scotland. Click here for our tribute from Ansty.
Accession Day 2022. (updated 06-02-2022)
This year’s Accession Day – on 6 February 2022 – marked 70 glorious years since The Queen acceded to the throne on the death of her father King George VI. Her Majesty has gone on to reign longer than any other British Monarch in history, and to become a beloved figure around the world. It is fitting that there was a special Accession Service of Mattins at St James’ Church in Ansty, attended by regular members of the congregation. Led by Lesley Simm, it was a simple, but moving occasion which concluded with the hymn ‘I vow to Thee My Country’. Click picture to find out how Ansty commemorated this special day. Click here to read an extract from The Guardian.
The Queen and the nation bid farewell to Prince Philip. (17-04-2021)
Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, died at Windsor Castle on Friday 9 April, aged 99.The funeral procession and service was held at St George’s Chapel, Windsor on Saturday April 17th on a glorious spring day. The whole event was powerful in its beauty, simplicity and reverence, perfectly reflecting the Duke’s own wishes, along with his love of the sea and the environment.
The Service was, at its heart, an intensely private and family occasion and one we, in Ansty, can all readily identify with. Click on image for our reflections.
Ansty finds time to reflect on the grief and loss felt by so many during the pandemic (posted 23-03-2021)
Along with the many Remembrance events in the UK, a ‘beacon of remembrance’ moment of reflection was held by villagers on the moonlit night of March 23rd. Although we were spared such distress, people in Ansty quietly reflected on the 126, 284 people who have died of the covid-19 coronavirus since the pandemic began one year ago. Click on image.
Remembrance Day at Ansty. (updated 11-11-2020)
REMEMBRANCE DAY 2020 will be markedly different due to the 2nd ‘lockdown’ restrictions in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Remembrance Day commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at 11:00 am—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.”. It marks the day World War One ended. The first two-minute silence in Britain was held on 11th November 1919, when King George V asked the public to observe a silence at 11am. He made the request so “the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead”. Today we remember all the fallen in all conflicts that have taken place since.
Click on the image for a more comprehensive report.
Ansty Remembers VJ Day …(posted 14-08-2020)
This Saturday, August 15th we remember VJ Day which marked the end of World War ll for all fighting forces. VJ Day stands for ‘Victory in Japan Day’. It marks a very important event in World War 2 – the day Japan surrendered to the Allies after almost six years of war on 15 August 1945, 75 years ago. Click on the image to reveal more
Ansty Village Celebrates the 75th anniversary of V E Day – May 8th 2020
VE Day celebrates the end of World War Two in Europe when hostilities between our allies against Nazi Germany halted on May 8th 1945. It was a day of celebration across the country, with people waving flags and holding street parties rejoicing at the peace that had been a long time coming. Ansty villagers joined in too … Tap image to discover more
D-Day – 6th June 1944 – 75th Anniversary – Thursday June 6th, 2019.
On June 6th 1944 many Ansty families would have been listening to the ‘wireless’ when at 10 am John Snagge (a top BBC newsreader) announced that ‘D-Day’ was under way. Villagers would have instinctively known that the ‘hour of European liberation was approaching’ and that the dreadful War that began in 1939 was coming to an agonising end.
Click/tap the image to read more
Armistice Centenary Commemoration at Ansty on Remembrance Sunday, November 11th 2018.
The Centenary of the Armistice which ended the hostilities of the First World War was marked across the nation on Sunday, November 11th, 2018. St James’ Church in Ansty was just one of many establishments holding a ‘Remembrance Sunday Centenary Service’ on this special day.
People from Ansty and the surrounding area gathered together in the tiny St James’ Church in Ansty to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armistice which ended World War 1 and which fell on Remembrance Sunday, 11th November 2018.
The service was led by Church Warden Lesley Simm in the absence of Canon Judy Anderson who was unfortunately indisposed.
Just before 11 am, after the presentation of the standard, a roll call of those valiant men from Ansty and Swallowcliffe who had paid the ultimate sacrifice in the bloody conflict just over a century ago was read out, together with the Exhortation. The last post was sounded, followed by the Silence of Remembrance at the centenary of the Armistice on the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, 2018.
Armistice Day is commemorated every year on 11th November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I (which included Britain) and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front. It took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. It brought to an end one of the bloodiest conflicts ever perpetrated on this earth by humanity. It was often called ‘the war to end all wars’. Unfortunately it was not.
Sunday, November 11th 2018 should be a time for today’s residents of Ansty to reflect on how World War One must have affected the Ansty villagers of 1918 during those long dark years of 1914-18.
The Armistice centenary gives us all the opportunity to acknowledge the loss and trauma of the First World War, as well as reflect on peace and hope at the centenary of its closure. As well as joining together in remembrance, we can imagine the relief and jubilation of that important day a century ago, here in our parish of Ansty.
Click here to read more: Ansty Remembers …
THE CENTENARY OF THE ARMISTICE OF 1918
On 11th November 2018 we mark the centenary of the Armistice that ended the hostilities of the First World War, an event not only being marked in Ansty but also across the nation, indeed across much of the world.
The title First World War is one given with hindsight to the great conflict that raged from the summer of 1914 until it was formally ended by the Treaty of Versailles, which was formally registered at the newly formed League of Nations on 21st October 1919. To those who participated in this conflict, however, it was referred to as the more aspirational ‘Great War of Civilisation’, and the ‘War to end all wars’.
For the past four years, we have been able to reflect upon the events that began in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian imperial throne, and which led to the United Kingdom honouring its obligation as a guarantor of Belgian neutrality and involvement in a war that was supposed to be ‘over by Christmas’. We have been reminded during these past four years that what was envisaged as a brief expedition led to many famous and not so famous battles on land and sea that resulted in the loss of a generation:
The Battles of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes (1914), with 347,000 casualties;
The Gallipoli campaign (1915 – 1916), with 470,000 casualties;
The First Battle of the Somme (1916), with 1,113,000 casualties
Battle of Arras (1917), with 278000 casualties;
The Third Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele (1917), with 857,100 casualties
And the Hundred Days Offensive (1918), with 1,855,369 casualties
Among the many reminders of the First World War are the words of those who were involved, including what to me is perhaps the best known of the war poems, with its concluding challenge to those of us who live on:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
(John McCrae, 1915)
Graham Southgate, Team Rector