there is a memeorial walk this Saturday------No flags-----no politics------no chanting/singing ----its a silent tribute --- as requested by his family who will be there)------starts at 2 PM from the White Horse pub.
Interesting piece from the Times yesterday on building a memorial for Lee Rigby -
Rigby’s killers don’t deserve a memorial to their vile deed
How tempting it is to damn the council jobsworths who snubbed a petition by 12,000 people to erect a memorial to Fusilier Lee Rigby on the spot where he was hacked to death in Woolwich a year ago. And how easy to savage the local MP for opposing the memorial because it “might attract undesirable interest from extremists”. So, too, might mosques, synagogues and churches, but we don’t remove them from the streets. Yet however wrong the reasoning may be, Woolwich would be better off without this memorial. Rigby’s murder was an outrage but it was, after all, just another horrible street crime by killers with a warped view of society. It does not deserve to be granted any wider significance. Rigby’s killers would love it if their deed were made to stand out like a skirmish in a Holy War. We shouldn’t be feeding their poisonous philosophy by building what they would love to think of their Place de la Bastille, the scene of a great triumph. True, the victims of other notorious murders have stones to mark where they were slain. PC Yvonne Fletcher has one in St James’s Square. PC Keith Blakelock has a polished granite stone near the site of his murder at Broadwater Farm. Stephen Lawrence has a stone set into the pavement in Eltham. But it is a practice that risks getting out of hand. There are upwards of 600 murders a year, for each of whom a case could be made for a memorial. Accept one and councils will find themselves under pressure to accept them all. Worse, they are going to be concentrated in areas trying to shake off violent pasts, blighting them for ever. Fancy investing in a street where there are constant reminders that someone was shot in a gangland killing, someone else stabbed for their mobile phone and another person mown down in a road-rage attack? Of course, Lee Rigby will not be forgotten but he should be remembered as he was, not a soldier cut down in battle but a young man murdered while peacefully going about his business. Like the most violent neighbourhoods, Woolwich should be allowed to escape the legacy of street crime. It shouldn’t be turned into an open-air museum of murder sites, still less presented as a battleground in a religious war.
I live in Woolwich and went for a day trip on that day. When I arrived back at Woolwich Arsenal station I could sense that something was wrong as soon as I stepped off the train. What a shock it was as I gathered the facts of what happened. RIP Drummer Rigby and God bless your soul.
I tried to find the original thread from here which started as the first reports were coming out of an incident in Woolwich but cant find it. I have read it back since. It will take you right back to that day last year, if anyone finds it.
Comments
Rigby’s killers don’t deserve a memorial to their vile deed
How tempting it is to damn the council jobsworths who snubbed a petition by 12,000 people to erect a memorial to Fusilier Lee Rigby on the spot where he was hacked to death in Woolwich a year ago.
And how easy to savage the local MP for opposing the memorial because it “might attract undesirable interest from extremists”. So, too, might mosques, synagogues and churches, but we don’t remove them from the streets.
Yet however wrong the reasoning may be, Woolwich would be better off without this memorial. Rigby’s murder was an outrage but it was, after all, just another horrible street crime by killers with a warped view of society. It does not deserve to be granted any wider significance. Rigby’s killers would love it if their deed were made to stand out like a skirmish in a Holy War.
We shouldn’t be feeding their poisonous philosophy by building what they would love to think of their Place de la Bastille, the scene of a great triumph.
True, the victims of other notorious murders have stones to mark where they were slain. PC Yvonne Fletcher has one in St James’s Square. PC Keith Blakelock has a polished granite stone near the site of his murder at Broadwater Farm. Stephen Lawrence has a stone set into the pavement in Eltham.
But it is a practice that risks getting out of hand. There are upwards of 600 murders a year, for each of whom a case could be made for a memorial. Accept one and councils will find themselves under pressure to accept them all.
Worse, they are going to be concentrated in areas trying to shake off violent pasts, blighting them for ever. Fancy investing in a street where there are constant reminders that someone was shot in a gangland killing, someone else stabbed for their mobile phone and another person mown down in a road-rage attack?
Of course, Lee Rigby will not be forgotten but he should be remembered as he was, not a soldier cut down in battle but a young man murdered while peacefully going about his business.
Like the most violent neighbourhoods, Woolwich should be allowed to escape the legacy of street crime. It shouldn’t be turned into an open-air museum of murder sites, still less presented as a battleground in a religious war.
LBC did a very good retelling of the events of that day this morning, sent shivers down my spine.
It ended with "You will remember where you were on 22nd of May" I know for sure I do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27500060
It also reports that the family don't want a memorial there. If true, it should be respected.
RIP
And if you have time to read it of course.