Tuesday, May 22, 2007

I don't see enough dead people

Merchant navy memorial flagI mentioned before that I ended up at the Tower of London on Sunday. To get there from the City you pretty much have to go via Tower Hill, where I popped into Trinity gardens, where there are 2 memorials.

The first is for sailors in the merchant navy killed in the second world war. This is because Trinity gardens are overlooked by the Port of London Authority building (which I will write about some other time as it's an impressive edifice). This memorial is fairly big, and purports to list the names of every seaman lost in the Battle of the Atlantic.

The second memorial (pictured below) is a more subdued affair. A small square of Land holds about 6 plaques with the names of a few of the people who were beheaded or hanged at Tower Hill. As the plaque says, many of the 125 executed died a martyr's death, but curiously it only names some of the people.

Now, given that thousands of dead sailors are listed nearby, would it have killed the authorities to give a comprehensive list of the 125 martyrs of Tower Hill? Would it? I don't begrudge the merchant navy their full inventory (my godfather was in the merchant navy during he war, and he died*.), but I think we should end the iniquity here!

Decapitated martyrs
*long after retiring admittedly, but I'm sure he'd still back me 100%. He was a very down to earth man, with no airs and graces. The sort of person who never threw a piece of wood away.

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