The Bridge, by Ian McMillan

Once we had decided to create a project around the re-siting of our memorials, the central element of the project was the poem that the church commissioned Ian McMillan to write.

Here is the text of the poem, and below the poem there is a link to the film of Ian presenting his poem (on a private YouTube site).

THE BRIDGE

These faces, these names

Are a bridge from then to now

All those young men, all those hearts

Walking on the unfamiliar brow

Of an unfamiliar hill

From Stocksbridge to a kill

These soldiers, these boys

Are a bridge from now to then

All those uniforms walking slowly

All these unforgotten men

On an unfamiliar hill

From Stocksbridge to a kill

You can hear Yorkshire

In the way they talk

You can see Stocksbridge

In the way they walk

You can see the men they could have become

As they march behind the beating of history’s drum

These phantoms, these ghosts

Walk behind us as we go

Through Grenoside in the sun

Through Deepcar in the snow

This is where Remembrance starts:

From Stocksbridge to our hearts.

Ian McMillan