About

Reflection – Remembrance Day 2022 – Gathering in Chapel on 9th Nov 2022

During our Wednesday Gathering in the Chapel, the Shawnigan community took time to reflect on Remembrance Day in advance of our ceremony on Friday, November 11. What follows is my address to the School.
This morning, I would like to give an introduction to Remembrance Day and its significance here in Canada – and at Shawnigan.
 
For those of you unfamiliar with Remembrance Day – which officially takes place on November 11th each year – it is a memorial day, observed in some countries since the end of the First World War in 1918, to mark the end of hostilities and to remember those who died in the line of duty.
 
On Friday, it will be 104 years to the day since Armistice and the end of the First World War.
 
CW Lonsdale established Shawnigan in 1916, a phoenix from the ashes of this turbulent period of history.
 
In Canada, it focuses on remembrance for the men and women who have served, and continue to serve, this country during times of war, conflict and peace – and those who have lost their lives in the service of peace, at home and abroad.
 
Shawnigan lost 45 alumni and staff in the Second World War.
 
There’s a commemorative plaque to my right that marks and honours them and this week there are 45 white crosses in the Quad to mark their sacrifice.
 
On Friday, we will hold our annual ceremony and the two Heads of School will read the roll of honour.
 
These members of the Shawnigan community served in the Canadian Air Force, Navy and Army and in many theatres of war – and were lost in the Atlantic, at Dunkirk and Normandy, in the Middle East, in North Africa and over mainland Europe.
 
William “Mac” McMullen was a member of the grounds staff at Shawnigan from 1927 to 1939. A lieutenant in the Artillery, he was killed in the raid on the French Port of Dieppe in France on August 19, 1942.

 
2022 is, in fact, the 80th anniversary of the Dieppe Raid, one of the most difficult and tragic days in Canadian history. After nine hours of intense fighting on the French beaches, 916 Canadian soldiers were killed, many were wounded, and 1,946 were taken prisoner. Mac McMullen was one Canadian who made the ultimate sacrifice at Dieppe.
 
In spite of the failure of the mission, invaluable lessons were learnt and they were instrumental in the success of the D-Day invasion two years later – and they changed the course of history.
 
After the first hymn, Mr. Lupton will tell you about an alumnus who was killed, in a war crime, a few days after D-Day.
 
This morning, we are going to sing the Duxbury House hymn – “I vow to thee, my country.”
 
It is always good to pause to think about the meaning of each hymn we sing.
 
This is a hymn which captures love and loyalty to one’s homeland in the first verse – “the love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice” – but, in the second verse, it guides us (perhaps more importantly) to “another country,” the kingdom of heaven whose “fortress is a faithful heart.”
 
I rather like the final couplet about heaven:
 
“And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.”
 
For me, Remembrance Day is both a time to honour those men and women (including civilians) who have fallen in conflicts – on which ever side – and also to remind ourselves that we must strive constantly to find those “paths” of “peace.”
 
I look forward to seeing you all wearing your poppies with pride on Friday.
 
Richard D A Lamont
Head of School
November 9, 2022

To watch the full Gathering, please click here.
To read Mr. Lupton's address, please click here
Back
We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.