to think children shouldn't play on a park's war memorial?

[OrdinaryGirl]

Just that really. We have a small park round the corner from us. In the middle is a beautiful memorial to the fallen - a column with little steps up to it and a statue of a running infantry soldier on top.

Yesterday three children were there with a lady, and they were chasing each other round the top step, and jumping over the poppy wreaths, occasionally stumbling and accidentally kicking them out of place. The lady was just watching them and smiling.

I felt really hot and uncomfortable as I don't even sit on the bottom step quietly to eat a sandwich, although a lot of people do. It felt like the children were being allowed to behave ignorantly and disrespectfully. I didn't know whether to say something.

I got to thinking - should these war memorials be treated as a special part of the park furniture? To be used and sat on and played on, because that's what the people in WW1 & WW2 who died believed they were fighting for - the right for people to get on living their lives peacefully.

Or should they be sacred, something you don't touch or sit on?

I'm inclined to the latter but would like to hear the thoughts of the hive mind, especially as we approach Remembrance Day.

So - AIBU?

YADNBU

Yabu it's not like it is an actual grave they were running on.
I don't see the problem with kids playing on it at all

I write local history books and I've spent a lot of time photographing towns/villages war memorials in Essex and the East of England. I've also researched eye-witness newspaper accounts and parish records from the end of the First World War and on into the 1920s charting the building and unveiling of these memorials. Most were financed by very recently bereaved members of the public who were still suffering the trauma of the First World War with the deaths of their loved ones. Many of those commemorated on war memorials have no known graves, or graves so far away that families could not visit their dead. So these war memorials ARE their graves and a place where shattered families could pay their respects.

That aside, there is another aspect to this. Most war memorials are now coming up to being a hundred years old. Many are falling into disrepair and town/village/city councils across the country are having to repair them at great cost. Allowing children to run over them will cause them to flake and fall apart even quicker then they would normally do. I am not exaggerating this risk - I have read so many newspaper reports from recent years whereby councils are having to spend vast sums of money repairing these structures. You can see the good old British weather has already badly effected so many memorials. Children playing on them will erode them even further.

Whether there's poppies on them or not, it is disrespectful to let children play on them. The people who financed these memorials back in the 1920s would be horrified because these memorials represent the shattered lives of an entire generation. There's plenty of other places for children to play. Leave the memorials alone.

Thank you Agnes. You have beautifully clarified for me why I feel so uneasy about it, when in most cases I am the first to make soppy comments about the sound of children's laughter etc!

Yanbu - I worry too about the damage that can be caused.

I got very judgy a couple of years back when I saw a grown man lock his bike to the memorial (it is a metal one) just days after Remembrance Sunday/Day.

Ours is fenced off but kids can get over. One time I thought I saw one of my kids (aged about 7) climbing over fence with friends (I was on other side of park with another child). I had words with my kids about respecting it, and it seems so have most other parents. It's ages since I've seen any kids trying to play on it.

I think you do need to explicitly tell kids why they should respect it.

I used to think no until my DS was old enough to want to climb up the steps and hide behind the statue etc.

I let him explore the memorial as he wants to but he is to be respectful, no kicking etc. I use it as an opportunity to talk to him about the "heroes" that it is there to represent and that these men were great fighters to help keep him safe. I point out the angel and talk to him a little about how we are all being looked after.

I watch him like a hawk on it - 1 because I want him to be respectful of poppies etc and 2 - because it's got pigeon shit all over it.

Many of these memorials were built by local committees. A hundred years on, reading the minutes of many of these committees are absolutely heart breaking. Even before the end of the First World War, committees were desparate to commemorate their dead in some worthwhile and meaningful way. Many committees couldn't agree on exactly what form their dead should be commemorated. In one North West Essex town, the discussions were so heated and so painful for all those involved (many of whom had just lost sons) that the entire committee resigned and stormed off. Eventually, this town did get their war memorial; right in the middle of what is today a very busy main road (no playing on this war memorial - you'd get killed if you did by the passing lorries!) Sadly in amongst the names on this memorial is a former member of the committee who died of wounds just days after the end of the war.

Many of the towns were acutely aware that they didn't want their men to have died for a worthless reason. Lots of committees wanted something postive for the future and not to just the memorials commemorating their dead. Many towns raised substanal sums of money to build not only the memorials, but also to finance public amenities. Villages halls, working men's clubs and even wings to cottage hospitals were built from public money raised whilst the country's war memorials were built.

This is were the people from the past wanted their children to benefit - in the village halls and hospitals. Stay away from the War Memorials, they are not for children to play on - even if they're not kicking the memorial, they will still be adding to its general collective erosion.

DP is a war veteran, as is DBIL so none of ours play anywhere near war memorials because for our family they are something sacred. However, I can see that kids playing on them is just kids having fun. The kicking about of wreaths however I wouldn't be ok with and would have said so, bluntly.

T4nut would you say a grave stone is'just a lump of concrete' ? It really is the same thing.

Kicking the wreaths off is wrong, however I'm sure that the soldiers who died for our freedom are happy that the kids are running around and playing.
Having said that if my lo had run up and knocked wreath I wouldn't stand there smiling, id pop it back and say let's find somewhere else to play.
Also were is the line to be drawn, don't lots of kids play in the Diana memorial fountain?

I would have felt uncomfortable too. The kids should be taught some respect.

In some cases this is the only memorial a fallen soldier got (i.e. no body was found); it seems a bit like running around a graveyard and kicking over flowers.

t4nut, it means something to their families, it means something to the families and friends of soldiers lost in conflicts right up until now. Poppies are made by injured veterans, they're not tacky, and nobody is forcing you to participate in the silence. While you are merrily going about your business, speaking English and not German, enjoying freedom of speech, of expression, the freedom to vote, to be free to be who we are, just stop and think about why you have these freedoms. Freedom most certainly isn't free.

Yanbu
Disrespectful in my book.

It's a place of remembrance for soldiers with no graves, people go and lay flowers an need remember the dead. Same.

Well aren't you lucky to live in a land of free will T4 ?

I don't see why not - just a bunch of steps and a column. Those who fell are long gone and a piece of concrete means nothing to them.

It means something to their families ffs. Some soldiers died less than a decade ago. Jesus wept, I can't believe someone actually wrote that!

It's incredibly disrespectful to allow children to climb and play on war memorials. I would have found it really hard to have kept my mouth shut tbh.

A couple of Summers ago we went to the National Memorial Aboretum. We were on the top of the hill at the main memorial wall, to all the soldiers, sailors and airmen who have died since world war 2. We all had our heads bowed in front of the names of DH's colleagues who had lost their lives in RAF Hercules and some women and a child came through, the child was bowing a fucking whistle. I couldn't believe anyone could be so stupid to have allowed that.

t4nut I'm not going to engage with your frankly goady, arsey posts any more. You don't have to do any of the things you're complaining about, but you also don't have to be so fucking sneery and disrespectful of men like my DP and many others, just because you don't agree with it.

I think it is very disrespectful actually especially as they were knocking the wreaths off of it.

Also in the claim culture that we are beginning to develop I am surprised that there is not a sign next to stone memorials like this to tell parents not to let their children play on it from a H & S point of view.

I would never have let my kids run around on a war memorial - and I know that one of our local bobbies gave a bunch of youngsters a right bollocking for lounging around our war memorial like it was the local gym equipment.

I'd definitely have said something about the kicking of the wreaths too - that's disgraceful behaviour.