Remembrance for a new generation
On the 11th November everything stopped for a beautifully simple but heartfelt Remembrance Event staged by first year National Diploma in Performing Arts students. Shafts of unseasonally bright sunlight illuminated the Henry Mitchell Hall throughout the lunchtime performance, adding their poignant compliment to the reflective mood, as the audience remembered those who would not enjoy the sunshine again.
The programme began with Last Post, a movement sequence performed by Charlotte Bridge, Michelle Davies, Charlotte Gibson, Jamie-Lee Parker, Nakul Patel, Melissa Thorpe, Kayleigh Townson and Amanda Walton, followed by Nakul Patel reading a Letter Home.
Second year National Diploma in Music Parctice student, Peter Daramy-Williams, played a beautiful Beethoven piano solo, then Stephen Normandale read Rupert Brooke's The Soldier. Kayleigh Townson and Melissa Thorpe performed a lyrical dance piece, Angel Gabriel, before Helen Mackay's Train was read by Luke Ferrey and Charlotte Gibson.
Jamie-Lee Parker performed her self -penned Poppy and finally the whole company performed Marianne Griffin's Prayer for Remembrance Day.
Damien O'Keeffe, Curriculum Team Leader for Media, Music and Performing Art, told the audience “The students have had only two days to put this performance together and it has been all their own work. How heart-warming it is to see young people engage with this subject in such a dignified manner.”
Veteran Geoff Lister, who represented the British Legion, heartily agreed and felt that current conflicts were transforming the image from distant history to something more relevant for a new generation. “I think that the young should get involved in Remembrance Day. Now that so many servicemen and women are being killed or wounded in Afghanistan every day, young people are beginning to realise the sacrifice made by previous generations.”
Geoff served in Royal Artillery between 1969 and 1981, before his son Paul, who is a member of the College Security team, was born. Paul spent a year in the Territorial Army and is also a loyal supporter of the British Legion.