As we remember the Great War and the Somme there seems much to mourn and little to celebrate. However, fifty-three parishes are known as Thankful Villages.
These villages were spared any casualties. Furthermore, fourteen of them are doubly thankful as they had no casualties in World War II. I saw a memorial to commemorate this deliverance years ago and now have completely forgotten where. However, I retrieved these pictures from the Internet.
This all came to mind because of a stone cross that I saw earlier this year and did think of snapping.
Arguably Kings Newton were “shooting before the Twelfth” – a euphemism in my youth for couples who left the starting gates before the Off in the Matrimonial Stakes with, perhaps, a bun in the oven, often leading to a hot-cross Mum and a well-mixed metaphor.
Do I digress, surely not? An English teacher at my prep. school in Dublin would go berserk if asked a question starting “surely, sir, …”. He also forbade the word “nice”. His instruction served me well but I have added in “pleasant” as another lazy adjective. I have never used it on this website except (once) when it appears in a piece I have quoted.
Now you’d like to know about other civic memorials commemorating the reign of Edward VIII (20th January – 11th December, 1936). There are 271 postboxes and four stamps. The Royal Mint prepared patterns for coins but none were issued. I cannot find anything else. Over to you.
Perhaps it was simply pragmatism on the part of the GPO, but an Edward VIII pillar box was erected in Belfast five days after the abdication:
http://www.hidden-gems.eu/belfast%20-%20last%20EVIII%20postbox.pdf
In addition, the post office in Bangor, Co. Down, bears an elaborate brass plate with the Edward VIII cypher: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/534026
I imagine the postbox was installed after the abdication because it was too expensive an item to junk – pragmatism, as you say? Also I now realise that there are quantities of commemorative mugs, plates etc. I forgot about them.