Last updated 10:43, Friday, 07 November 2008

Sunday will be a difficult day for Maureen Feely. In tribute to all soldiers, fallen in so many wars, she will pause to remember them. In honour of her treasured only daughter Sarah, killed in active service in Afghanistan, the day will be much like any other ... awash with precious memories.

Maureen Feely

At the little cemetery in Wetheral, where Corporal Sarah Bryant lies, mother and daughter will again share their special bond in silence. In the village church where together they knew the happiness of Sarah’s wedding to fellow soldier Carl Bryant and – only two years later – the sorrow of her military funeral, Maureen knows she will sense the closeness of the daughter she has always called her one and only.

“I miss her,” Maureen said. “I miss telling her things, receiving her letters, hearing her news, laughing with her. She would have been home by now. Had things gone differently, I would have seen her, spent time with her. I miss her physical presence. That’s the hardest thing now.

“People try to be kind by telling me it will get easier as time passes. I know they mean well but it doesn’t get any easier. If anything it gets harder. I can be thinking about or doing something entirely unrelated to Sarah and from nowhere a vivid memory of her will rush in.

“There are good days and bad days. But nothing can stop me missing her. I’m sure the families and friends of all servicemen and women lost to war will feel the same way. We can’t expect our loss to grow easier with the passing of time. We don’t expect it.”

Such is the essence of Remembrance Day. Never easy and neither should it be. Memory draws its strength from a staying power that keeps loved ones near, heroism and service fresh, pride alive. It will not be dimmed easily.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them,” says Laurence Binyon’s armistice pledge.

And it has held true for 90 years.

Sarah Bryant, 26, Army intelligence officer, made history as the first female British soldier killed in action in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province last summer. She died when the Snatch Land Rover in which she was travelling was blown apart by a land mine. Three other soldiers in the vehicle, her friends and colleagues, also died that day.

“My daughter’s life was everything she’d wanted it to be. She filled it with courage, purpose, belief and dignity. Please remember her for those qualities,” Maureen said at the time. Nothing has happened since to change those sentiments or alter that plea.

Sarah would expect her mum to keep Remembrance Day for contemplation of lives lost in war. Mother and daughter had been doing so together since Sarah was a child of eight or nine. Most often they would worship at the memorial service in Wetheral’s Holy Trinity Church, sometimes taking part in the ceremony and wreath laying in Carlisle.

“With a tradition of military service in the family – my brother was in the Falklands – we have always kept Remembrance Day as a special day. This year is obviously different for me and of course it will be difficult because of the personal loss of Sarah.

“But it will still be a day for honouring all fallen service personnel in so many conflicts. There’s a duty never to forget them. It’s daunting to have to face it but Sarah is now part of that – one of them.”

Sarah’s father Des Feely will lay a wreath at the war memorial in Carlisle. But it is to Wetheral that Maureen knows she will be drawn on that day. The village has figured enormously at every significant stage of Sarah’s life – and it is there she lies in death. Mother and daughter find each other there.

The past few days have introduced a new unease into Maureen’s continuing efforts to deal with her loss. SAS Commander Major Sebastian Morley quit his position this week because a roadside bomb had almost killed another four of his troops who were travelling in a Snatch Land Rover in September.

In his resignation letter, Major Morley blamed “chronic under investment” in equipment for the deaths of Cpl Bryant and her comrades in June.

Angry top level exchanges that followed saw the Defence Secretary blaming Army commanding officers for errors in judgement in the deployment of available equipment. But then a Government apology followed, along with the announcement of a £700m investment in 700 new armoured vehicles.

“I know only as much about those issues as does anyone who has read the press reports,” said Maureen.

“There may have been investment issues but I prefer not to think about any of the detail of what happened that day. My hope now is that the purchase of those new armoured vehicles will help keep soldiers safe in the future. And as Remembrance Day approaches my thoughts are with the fallen, their families and friends who love them – particularly with Private Charles David Murray, from Carlisle, who died around the same time as Sarah and his loved ones.”

Though continuing political rumblings, daily media reports and analysis, graphic images and disturbing television footage of war in Iraq and Afghanistan make for a less than comfortable presence of the conflict that claimed her daughter’s life, Maureen approves of the deeper understanding they bring to the wider population.

“I think as a result of a more extensive and open reporting of war, younger people understand better what has to be done now to secure our freedom and safety. I think they realise, as a result, how important it is to feel respect and pride for all those who make the ultimate sacrifice.

“There has been a perception that Remembrance was always about the victims of two world wars. But younger people relate more closely now to what has happened – is still happening – in more recent conflicts, what service people who go to war on our behalf have to deal with, the bravery they show. I believe that’s an improvement on the way things used to be.”

Maureen remains fiercely proud of Sarah’s service in Iraq and Afghanistan – a service she undertook professionally, with skill and a determination to make a difference. Her achievements and talents earned immense respect and admiration from her superiors and colleagues. She was a soldier first and last, committed to the end.

Just as Maureen’s pride and love for Sarah are undiminished, so is her belief that our troops’ presence in Afghanistan is still necessary.

“We’re in there now and I honestly believe we have to resign ourselves to staying until the job we set out to do is done... and that hasn’t happened yet.”

A private person, Maureen doesn’t easily roll out her personal thoughts for public consumption. Even when invited to do so as an illustration of the here and now importance of Remembrance, she has to fight her instincts to pull back from public attention, in order to offer heartfelt tributes to fallen war heroes – and encourage others to do the same.

This year's Remembrance Day marks the 90th anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I in 1918. Since that day, November 11, it has been observed annually as an interlude of peace in all busy, noisy routine to contemplate the courageous sacrifices made by young men and women to the greater ideals of freedom – from oppression, aggression, tyranny... and now terror.

Carlisle’s mayor will lead the city in officially remembering its fallen war heroes on Sunday. Jacquelyne Geddes will be accompanied by senior clergy and military personnel to head a 90-strong civic procession.

It is a ceremony sure to renew raw emotion in Carlisle this year following the deaths of Sarah Bryant and Charles David Murray in Afghanistan.

The mayor, along with city councillors, will leave the Old Town Hall at 9.45am, to arrive at Carlisle Cathedral for the 10am Service of Remembrance. The civic procession will later move to the Town Hall Square where a parade, service and wreath-laying ceremony will take place at 10.55am.

Soldiers, RAF personnel, ex-servicemen and other community groups will also be at the war memorial.

But away from the pomp and respectfully choreographed ceremony of civic procession, in a quiet country village cemetery, a mother will share her own thoughts and prayers with the daughter she calls her one and only.

Maureen Feely and her Sarah will be together again, closely bonded in remembrance of days before the missing began.