In memory of my father
Acting Captain Kenneth Launcelot Napier-Andrews, RASC
March 21, 1916 – June 27, 1996
Captured at Singapore and enslaved by the Japanese on the Burma Railway
1942 – 1945

In memory of my grandfather
Launcelot Leonard Napier-Andrews
1882 – June 10, 1944
Killed by a German bomb in Aldwych, London
 
In memory of my grandfather
Chief Petty Officer Basil Stuart Lush, RNVR
Jan 10, 1890 – July 2, 1990
A sailor in the Great War
1914 – 1918

Lance and Ken Napier-Andrews c. 1930

Grandpa Lush with my mother c. 1917

For the Fallen

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Written by English poet Laurence Binyon (August 10, 1869 – March 10, 1943) and first published in The Times, September 1914.

In Flanders Fields

Yorkshire poppies — photo by Nigel Napier-Andrews

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Written by Canadian poet and physician Lieutenant Colonel John McRae (November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918) after the second battle of Ypres, May 3 1915, and first published in Punch magazine, December 8, 1915.

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

In the moat around the Tower of London an extraordinary and moving field of poppies has grown over the summer, commemorating the Centenary of Word War I.  The poppies number exactly 888,246, one for every British and Empire military fatality during the Great War.

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, conceived by ceramic artist Paul Cummins and stage designer Tom Piper — photo copyright Getty Images