Lighting the way

Sunday and yesterday many European nations marked the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. (In Russia, not so much. But then, they're a little busy right now reliving the Stalinist era.) Sunday was the hundredth anniversary of France and Germany’s declarations of war; yesterday that of Britain and Germany.

Naturally there were politicians crawling over everything. I personally find it rather cherce that British Prime Minister David Cameron is pretending to have a sense of history. Well, okay, he’s not; he’s pretending to care about history. I'm not sure who believes him.

But it’s the commemoration by ordinary citizens that I find interesting. My friend Marcia and her colleagues at Holy Trinity Church in Cookham rang a quarter peal last night, to honor the dead. She spent part of the day wrestling the six heaviest of their ten bells to half-muffle them. You muffle the bells for funerals. I’m sure that HTC wasn’t the only tower tolling the loss.

And across the UK, from 2200 to 2300 BST, individuals, families and towns turned off their lights, allowing mostly just candles to pierce the darkness.

As the declarations were whizzing around Europe like machine gun fire in August 1914, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey (who’d certainly contributed to the march to war) said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”

Well, he got that right.

Anyhow, I thought you should see some of the photos of the #lightsout, which was organized by the British Legion. It was a combination of personal remembrance and community vigils.

In London’s Victoria Tower Gardens, there was a light installation by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda. 

It’s a number of lights shooting up to the sky, which give the impression of a single pillar when seen from a distance. I have to say that it reminds me just a bit of Albert Speer’s Cathedral of Light for Nazi party rallies, but it was stunning.

This shot came from a cop who flies helicopters for the Metropolitan Police:

And at 10 Downing Street, a single lantern stood on the doorstep:

In Preston, in the North, 1956 candles were lit around their cenotaph, marking the men from that town who never returned from the war:

In Glasgow, the central train station went dark:

And in Belfast, civic buildings did, too:

Even a chippie in Dromore, County Down, operated by candlelight:

Back in London, Buckingham Palace had only one window lit:

And I’m thinking that London has not been this blacked-out for about 70 years: