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A Legacy of Serving Others: Remembrance at Berkhamsted
This week, Berkhamsted Schools Group has commemorated Remembrance Day, and the members of our historic community who fought and died at war.
On 11th November, pupils across each campus paused at the eleventh hour for two minutes of silent reflection, led by Reverend Becky Taylor and the Berkhamsted School’s CCF division.
On 13th November, Rev. Taylor also led a Remembrance service for Sixth students, sharing the story of Sister Hannah Maud Cottingham, a nurse who served in the Beeches VAD Hospital, now the site of our Prep School. Her legacy in the town offered a moment of reflection and commemoration for our community.
Remembrance Day around Berkhamsted Schools Group
Rev. Taylor’s words on Sister Hannah Maud Cottingham:
“Today is about remembering –not just remembering events, the First and Second World Wars and many conflicts since – but remembering the people who were caught up in the tragedies of these events. People perhaps known to us personally, those we’ve heard about or seen the name of, and perhaps those that remain unknown to us. We’re going to think about one of those people connected with our Berkhamsted School and town community.
In 2021 the felling of the old and decaying acacia tree, that stood between Old Hall and the library, resulted in a large amount of redundant but workable timber. Keith Goddard – an OB who was in Adders in 1962, set to work to turn the old timber into a range of beautifully crafted items. The three pieces on display were donated to the archive by the Old Berkhamstedians.
The remaining crafted items were sold to raise funds for the restoration of a memorial stone in Rectory Lane Cemetery, belonging to Hannah Maud Cottingham, who was a Matron at The Beeches Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital, which is now part of the Berkhamsted Prep School.
Hannah Maud Cottingham was born on 13 October 1886 in small townland in County Down, Ireland, 21 miles south of Belfast. She trained as a nurse and through various sources we know that she worked at the Baltic and Corn Exchange Hospital in 1915. This was the name given to a British Base Hospital in northern France, officially named No.8 British Red Cross Hospital.
In the First World War, base Hospitals were part of the battlefield casualty evacuation chain, further back from the front line than the Casualty Clearing Stations. They were often located near a coastal port so that wounded men could be evacuated back to Britain. Maud’s hospital was located at Calais between October 1914 and July 1915. It then moved to Paris from September 1915-December 1917, and from January 1918 it was situated in Boulogne. Hannah would have nursed many wounded soldiers from the Battle of Loos in 1915, and would have seen the horrific effects from one of the earliest uses of poison gas on the battlefield.
In 1916 she came to work as the Matron at ‘The Beeches’ VAD Hospital. The Beeches served as the medical facility for the Inns of Court Regiment which stationed an Officers’ Training Corps (OTC) camp at Berkhamsted from 1914-1919. Thousands of young men passed through training at Berkhamsted before being sent to fight in the battlefields of Belgium and France. 2200 of those men never returned home.
When the 1918 Flu Pandemic struck Berkhamsted, many OTC trainees were hospitalised at the Beeches. Sister Hannah was in charge of their treatment, and she opened an overflow fever ward in the Court House next to St Peter’s Church. In an attempt to limit infection, sheets soaked in disinfectant were hung in between patients’ beds.
Finally, Hannah herself contracted flu. She died on the 27th October 1918 aged only 31, hundreds of miles from home. She was much loved and respected by the soldiers of the Inns of Court OTC in her care, and they were so affected by her death in the service of them and of her country that the regimental OTC paid for her grave in Rectory Lane Cemetery.
Hannah’s love and service of the soldiers in her care, whether in Calais, Paris, Boulogne or Berkhamsted echo the words of Jesus in John 15: ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’. He spoke these words to his disciples the night before he was executed on the cross, laying down his life that his friends might have everlasting life.
In the midst of serving the soldiers in Red Cross Hospitals and seeing the horrific effects of the battlefield, I’m sure Hannah also echoed the words of Isaiah ‘How long?’ – we too might echo those words when we see the destruction of wars and as we long for peace and justice around our world. In the midst of the destruction that Isaiah sees all around him, God points out a couple of tree stumps: ‘But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.” These trees can be remarkably resilient – oak and terebinth trees can regrow from a stump under certain conditions. The process, known as coppicing, involves cutting the tree down to a stump and allowing new shoots to grow from the base. The new growth can eventually develop into a new tree if given the right conditions.
This little sign of the hope of new life in the midst of death and destruction points forward from Isaiah’s time to the time of Jesus and the hope of resurrection and new life that He brought that first Easter morning. And it points forward to 1918 where poppies grew abundantly in the disturbed soil of the battlefields. The imagery of poppies blooming amidst the devastation of war resonated deeply leading to their adoption as a symbol of remembrance for those who lost their lives in military conflicts.
It also has resonances with our felled acacia tree, which provided the wood for these beautiful, crafted items which were sold to enable the restoration of Sister Hannah Maud Cottingham’s memorial stone. This memorial in Rectory Lane cemetery, along with the war memorials on the side of our chapel, and the brass plaque outside the Beeches at our Prep School are places where those of us alive today can pause, remember and give thanks for those who gave their lives during wars, whether on the battlefields, in the air, at sea or in the hospitals. And perhaps finding these memorials in the midst of our Prep and Senior Schools, which are filled with the sound of pupils playing and learning, serves as a reminder of the hope of new life for the future.
Shall we pray,
Dear Lord, just as in the silence of today we remember those who have suffered in conflicts of the past and the sacrifices that were made, we pray for a world where war is still a grim reality. We pray for those who are injured, homeless, bereaved, those who have lost their livelihoods and those whose families are scattered.
We pray for the leaders of the nations, may your Spirit of reconciliation be upon them. Give them a longing to bring freedom from fear for all peoples. Give wisdom, strength and courage to those whose decisions affect the lives of others.
And thank you for the love, sacrifice and risen life of Christ that gives hope for the future. Help us to give ourselves to the service of others and work for justice and peace.
Amen
- Rev. Taylor
