About
Mission and educational objectives
When you go home, tell them of us, and say:
For your tomorrow we gave our today.
Kohima War Memorial
On 6 November 2002 HM The Queen officially inaugurated the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill in London, UK. (See Events archive.)
These Gates have been erected as a lasting memorial to honour the five million men and women from Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent who volunteered to serve with the Armed Forces during the First World War and Second World War.
They also celebrate the contribution that these men and women and their descendants, members of the Commonwealth family, continue to make to the rich diversity of British society.
The Memorial Gates
For everyone who left their home
To fight for noble cause
Who battled with the strength of ten for right
Today we pause
Today we pause
For those who gave a gift to foreign lands
Of sweat or sacrifice or life
‘Cross field and hill and sands
‘Cross field and hill and sands
The battle grinded and unfurled
The world knew them as soldiers
But to us they are the world
To us they are the world
Five million gallant, brave and bold
Whose sacrifice saw us grow strong
While they do not grow old
They do not grow old
In Africa, the Rhone, the Rhine
Gallipoli and Burma
Egypt, France and Palestine
In Egypt, France and Palestine
They made their heroism known
And for that sacrifice do we
Carve here their homes in stone
For here their homes in stone
Shall mark eternally the glory
Of those who found their end
At the beginning of our story
Alex Glancy is a young Canadian living in London. The poem was written in 2008 and read by Lord Bilimoria at the annual commemoration ceremony at the Memorial Gates in November 2008.
