On Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:10:39 -0800 (PST), E27002 wrote:
: On Nov 6, 7:04*am, "DB." wrote:
: "Charlie Hulme" wrote in message
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: DB. wrote:
: A letter appears in The Telegraph today saying:
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: SIR - In Baker Street underground station, a fine marble war memorial
: is
: passed by thousands every day. It is now dirty and decrepit.
:
: * * Perhaps someone here can link us to a photograph?
:
:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mynameismisty/3364028830/
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: It's the Metropolitan Railway's memorial, designed by Charles W Clark,
: unveiled on 11 November 1920. The collection box for veterans adjacent
: is made from a 12" shell.
:
:
http://www.ukniwm.org.uk/server/show/conMemorial.3090
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: Charlie
:
: Thanks, Charlie. *I couldn't have hoped for a better (or quicker) reply.
:
: Beautiful inscription:
: 'The men from the service of The Metropolitan Railway Company whose
: names are inscribed below were among those who, at the call of King
: and Country left all that was dear to them endured hardness faced
: danger, and finally passed out of sight of men by the path of duty and
: self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in
: freedom ... let those that come after see to it that their names are
: not forgotten' ... the memorial was 'erected by the directors,
: officers and staff of the railway'
:
: It is shameful that this memorial has been allowed to deteriorate.
The best such inscription I ever saw is in the lobby of a building at Yale
University, where I went to college: "To the men of Yale who gave their lives
in the Civil War, the University has dedicated this memorial, that their high
devotion may live in all her sons and that the bonds which now unite the Land
may endure." Brief but well stated.
Alas, that inscription has also been allowed to deteriorate. It's inlaid (in a
contrasting color) in a marble floor with high pedestrian traffic and has
become quite worn. When I was there fifty years ago, it was prominent; now
some of it is hard to read. It was followed by a verse from a poem lamenting
the Civil War, and that has been all but obliterated.
Bob
Ob tr cont: One wing of that building is a huge rectangular marble dining hall
with a row of doors on each of its long sides. It looks like nothing so much
as an early-20th-century railroad station, with the doors being the gates to
the tracks.