Whilst some of the serving soldiers just got on with the orders of the day, in schools all over the nation schoolboys celebrated the Armistice.
Christopher Fry was at school in Bedford and 11th November 1918 was a day unlike any other day.
“At Modern School, Bedford, Christopher Fry, restless in the fifth form of the junior school, was being taught by an undersized clergyman known to the boys as “Smuts” when the bells of St. Paul’s Church began to peal massively, a maroon went off, and other church bells joined in the noise. “We cheered and thumped our desks, bouncing up and down in our seats, quite prepared to run out of the building and into the street. We could hardly believe that Shepherd-Smith meant us to go on with our work, as though the world had not been completely transformed. The world was at peace, a state of affairs I could hardly remember and at peace perhaps for ever. There would be bonfires, and flags, and fireworks, and no more death until the time for death….””
From : A Stillness Heard round the world by Stanley Weintraub.
For details of Soldiers from Modern School, Bedford who died in the First World War, click here on the link to the excellent site Roll of Honour.
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