HUNDREDS of students fell silent yesterday as the nation mourned its sons lost in conflicts around the world.
For many students at Darlington School of Mathematics and Science the remembrance assembly had added poignancy as their families serve their country in the armed forces today.
Assistant head teacher Steve Parr told a special assembly that the day marked the centenary of the start of World War I but also was an opportunity to remember all the people who had died serving their country – 1.4 million British soldiers since 1914.
“War is war and it is dreadful – none of us know what it is like unless we have lived through it,” he said.
“When the young men, not much older than you here today, marched off to the front in 1914 they did so with romantic notions of cavalry charges and walking in squares.
“But in their naivety they did not realise that they were now living in an industrial age where they would have to face the might of machines. What started as almost a celebration soon turned into a catastrophe.”
Chloe Tinker, 15, shed a tear during the assembly as one member of her family, an ex-pupil, serves in the REME and has been on tours of duty to Afghanistan. “I always cry because having him in the army it really hits home,” she said.
Charlotte Martin, 15, shared her pain as she also has family serving in the army. “They have served abroad and it is hard to imagine so many soldiers being killed over the years,” she said.
