The civic service for the 50th anniversary of the Lanfranc air disaster was held at Croydon Minster on Sunday 14 August.
A crowded Minster experienced a moving occasion including Dr Ron Cox’s reading of the names of all those who perished. A sense of the reality of the disaster was created by the knowledge that Dr Cox had been a teacher at the school at the time of the disaster and had in fact taught all thirty-four boys.
The poignancy of the tribute by Mrs Bjorg Tysdal Moe, the Deputy Mayor of Stavanger, was enhanced by the comparison with the loss of young lives in the July atrocities in Norway. It was sadly inevitable that both Mrs Moe’s eloquent address and the Reverend Canon Boswell’s sermon made reference to the damage inflicted on our own community during the heartless destruction and violence and self-seeking looting which has so scarred our nation in recent days.
The families of the “Lanfranc boys” found strength and support from their community in helping to heal the deep hurt caused by the air crash. Somehow we must find the way to repair the harm caused when a community has turned upon and inflicted damage on itself.
Ultimately it will not be the grand statements of politicians which bring about change but the determination of us all to establish a shared set of values and aspirations for our young people.
The civic service included the well known hymn “I vow to thee, my country” some of whose words I have adapted here:
“And there’s another country...
And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.”