Address given by David Sime Stiven M.C. at Central School, Aberdeen, 11 Nov. 1929.

Armistice Service

Nov. 11th, 1929

Hymn 477 (601) O God Our Help in Ages Past
Prayer
Two Minutes Silence
“The Last Post”
Paraphrase LXV1 How Bright These Glorious Spirits Shine!
Address
National Anthem Hymn 511 (631)
Benediction

Prayer:

O Almighty God
Who Has knit together
Thine elect in one Communion
and fellowship in the
mystical body of Thy Son
Christ our Lord
Grant us grace so to follow
Thy blessed saints in all
virtuous and Godly living that we may come to
those unspeakable joys
which Thou hast prepared
for them that unfeignedly
love Thee.
Thro’ Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

I come to you today not as a minister but rather as a soldier trained in public speaking.

I bring to you a message from a time long passed - a time the stress and intensity you do not understand and I hope you never realize. But the message is not just the message of one episode in the world’s history. It is a message the truth of which was tested then as in a furnace seven times heated, a message that stood the test. For the truth of it was the only thing that made life possible.

First of all I make to you the strange confession that the war was the happiest time in my life. Please do not misunderstand me. I was at Macbeth- the murder scenes - young - savages - in that applause I did not join. My happiness was not because of but in spite of carnage and slaughter, battle wounds and sudden death.

I would hark back to those days not to rouse passion in you of battle lust and bloody strife but to let you into the secret of a happiness I got once in my life compared with which all subsequent happiness is second best.

Once upon a time. I know not when. Long long ago. A dream maybe. But I can see it now as then. The silent purple poppy sea. Let me tell you of the vision of that poppy field. It is the resting place of men I call my friends. Companions dear as life itself, simple men, kindly men, honest men. Men untrained to arms - who left school and shop and farm for the sake of a country and of loved ones.

There was a song we used to sing out there - and the refrain ran “But everybody’s happy in an old French trench” and the queer bit about it was that the thing wasn’t havers it was true! Away from all the home comforts . uprooted from the familiar civilized life Tramp crawled into the life of antediluvian savages gone to earth, smelly in burrows, wallowing in mud, daily in danger of death in a hundred hideous forms, rarely clean, half slept, often underfed we were happy.

We were happy because:
1. We were engaged in an enterprise which we knew to be great
and 2, because we were not alone.
Then, if ever, we knew what friendship meant. These two things transformed hideousness into a glorious adventure, hell into heaven on earth.

And the in the course of things “I stopped a Blighty one”. I got a wound sufficiently severe to put me in hospital. And there I saw what women could do, The spirit of those girls was simply unbelievable. They had a hard life those girls. It’s not a pleasant thing to work 12-18 hours of the day amongst frames shattered almost beyond recognition. It’s not an easy thing to keep guard in the night watches over a ward of stricken humanity. And I got to see these lassies, frail of frame yet strong of spirit, coming round the ward in the early morning, Service and kindness of heart.

I come to you this morning, as it were from the battlefield, to tell you boys and girls that of all the marvels of creation, God has made nothing stronger than the spirit of man.,

You look upon the word today with the critical eye of youth testing everything, weighing every thing in the balance. And you are asking why all this weariness and unsettlement? Why all tis loathsomeness and losses in a past world war?

Weary spent and done - friendless and alone
“By still water they would rest
In the shadow of the tree:
After battle sleep is best,
After noise, tranquility.”
R.B.W. Noel (1834-1894) ‘The Old’

But it is for you to achieve great things.

I give you the secret of the happiness I found.
It is the true secret of co-operation.
It is two fold.
Get some work and do it heartily
and get a pal to help and be helped.
Be yours a life of action and of service
hand in hand with one true friend.

Then at the end of the happy day:

“Creep home and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when you were young.”
Chas. Kingsley (1819-1875)
From The Water Babies
‘Young and Old’