Continuing our short series of articles on Inverclyde's war memorials in the days leading up to Remembrance Sunday, former Greenock minister and Deputy Lieutenant the Rev Alan Sorensen shares some thoughts on Gourock's memorial.
You can’t really miss the Gourock War Memorial, situated as it is at the side of the A770 beside the famous outdoor swimming pool.
But it seems to me that there is a bit of a discord between the solemnity of the memorial and the tragic loss of life it commemorates and the wonderful joy of generations of people laughing and splashing in the pool.
Perhaps, though, there is something in the character of the community that is at ease with this curious juxtaposition. There are intriguing adverts in the local press from 1919 where a major fundraiser for the memorial was a fancy dress and cycle parade, with a garden fete, which also mentions that costumes may be hired for five shillings and sixpence. They also urge the reader to apply for one as early as possible due to demand!
In the immediate post-war euphoria such jollity was probably a very human approach to fund-raising for a memorial to remember the gruesome toll of the First World War.
READ MORE: Full details of Remembrance Sunday services being held across Inverclyde
Gruesome it is. The names of 98 young men and one civilian who were killed in the war and a further 74, including 24 civilians, from the Second World War, are inscribed upon it. The names of the most famous and infamous battles, such as Flanders, Mesopotamia and Gallipoli, are carved into the five-metre high polished granite column.
Every year at Remembrance the community gathers to remember. Civic dignitaries, along with local organisations, lay wreaths as they have done for just over a century. The Lord-Lieutenant for the county has ensured that His Majesty the King will be represented by one of his Deputy Lieutenants, and the usual impressively large crowd will take those two minutes to reflect on the price of peace paid by so many in previous generations.
Many of those who will stand in silence, some in their uniforms, or with badges of office, or their good Sunday clothes on have at some point enjoyed the carefree joy of swimming in the heated pool. Which is perhaps a symbol of the unspoken reason for the memorial: so that our society, generation after generation, have been free to enjoy our lives, our swimming or our fancy dress parades and garden fetes in peace.
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