If I should die, think only this of me:
that there’s some corner of a foreign field
that is for ever England.

The opening lines of The Soldier, the poem by Rupert Brooke, one of the Great War poets, and perhaps the most famous lines from the great and moving body of poetry that they gave us.

If I should die, think only this of me:
that there’s some corner of a foreign field
that is for ever England.

This year has brought us to, as we all know, the centenary of the outbreak of World War One – a war which was to dwarf all wars which had preceded it, a war which became known as The Great War, the war to end all wars, and which left an indelible mark upon the consciousness of a generation, and a mark that we still feel today.  And as we reflect and remember this morning I just want to tell the story of one particular corner of a foreign field – but whether it is for ever England we shall see.  And as well as being the story of a foreign field, it is also the story of two men who died during the Great War. The whole of the war separated the deaths of these two particular men. We begin with John Parr.

John Parr was born in Finchley in 1897, the son of a milkman. After he left school, working first as a butcher’s boy and then as a golf caddy he was attracted to the army as a better way of life. At least in the army you got two meals a day and a chance to see the world. And so, in 1912, being just 5 feet and 3 inches tall, he joined the 4th Battalion of the Middlesex regiment. He was only 15 years old but lied about his age, claiming to be 18 years and one month.  He specialized in becoming a reconnaissance cyclist. And in 1914 at the beginning of the war he found himself in Belgium near the town of Mons. On 21st August, two days before the battle of Mons, he and a companion while out on reconnaissance came under fire from a German cavalry patrol and he was killed by rifle fire, his companion escaping to report back the news. He was the first British soldier to die in the First World War. He was just 17 years old. And who could have known, then, of the horror that was to come as the war that people thought would be over by Christmas stretched into four years of one horrific battle after another.

After the battle of Mons, the British army retreated, giving Mons up to the Germans, and John Parr’s body was left behind.  In fact, his body was recovered by the German army, as after the battle it lay in German occupied territory. They buried his remains together the other British dead from the battle of Mons alongside their own war dead in a cemetery at Saint Symphorien in Belgium. His age is given on the gravestone subsequently erected by the British as 20 – his true age not being known.

Saint Symphorien started as a German war cemetery, and unlike the other allied war cemeteries of France and Belgium with their white headstones stretching across open spaces in endless rows, Saint Symphorien is a typical German cemetery – hilly and thickly wooded, with graves in squares, circles and small groups. It is a dark and solemn place.
And the fact that the British dead lie alongside the German dead in the same cemetery, treated with the same reverence, is down to Jean Houzeau de Lehaie, the Belgian who owned the land where the cemetery was placed. He loaned the land to the Germans in 1914 and insisted that he would only do so if they treated the British dead as their own. And at the summit of the cemetery a stone obelisk erected by the Germans pays tribute to the “German and English soldiers” who lie there. A corner of a foreign field that is not just for ever England, but also for ever Germany for those against whom we fought.  And another reminder of the inclusive nature of this particular cemetery is that buried there is Maurice Dease, the first posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross, along with Oskar Niemeyer, one of Germany’s first recipients of the Iron Cross. The cemetery remained in German hands for the until the end of the war, after which it was taken over by the War Graves Commission.

But the story of this particular cemetery does not end with John Parr. I mentioned earlier that the whole of the war separated the deaths of two men buried at Saint Symphorien. John Parr was the first British soldier to be killed in the war, and by sheer coincidence his grave lies right opposite that of George Ellison who was the last to be killed. George Ellison was a family man, twice John Parr’s age. He had been a regular soldier but left in 1912 to get married and become a coal miner. Just before the war he as recalled so, like Parr he was there at the very beginning of the war. Also at Mons, and he went on to see action in a string of major engagements including Ypres, Loos and Cambrai. Against the odds he survived until the end of the war. By chance he found himself back at Mons in November 1918, Mons being regained by the British right at the very end. He was shot just 90 minutes before the armistice came into effect. He was 36 years old and left a widow and a four-year old son.

Even more poignant is that just a few yards away from them both lies buried George Price, a Canadian soldier in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Mons was recaptured and liberated on the very last day of the war, November 11th 1918, by Canadian forces. And George Price was shot by a sniper just two minutes before the signing of the Armistice, and so his body also took its place in the cemetery of Saint Symphorien. And also in the cemetery are one hundred soldiers who were never identified, and whose gravestones record no name.

The story of a cemetery. A story which contains within it the story of two ordinary men, the first and last British soldiers to be killed. A story of two nations, Britain and Germany, whose soldiers lay there side by side. A story of a city lost at the very beginning of the war only to be liberated on the very last day. During the war Germans cared for British graves. After the war the British took over the cemetery and cared for German graves, as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission still does today. And it’s a story that reminds us of the bravery and the sacrifice of those who fought, and those who died; but that also reminds us of so many bereaved families and of the tragedy that was the First World War and that deeply affected so many nations and people.

Today with people all over the country we gather together to remember people like John Parr and George Ellison, to remember those known to us and all the other millions who died in that war that began a hundred years ago and who have died in wars since. And as we remember them, let us also remember that we are part of the continuing story of our nation and our world, as we commit ourselves to work together for the peace and the freedom for which so many have fought and for which so many have died.