We are fortunate that Kippax contains so many villagers who care about the past, have an interest in preserving it, and want to pass the accumulated history down for future generations. Old photos may not regularly see the light of day, but happily we don’t seem to throw them away, and over the years they’ve been shared, both family portraits and scenes of village life. So these displays are your displays, which we have simply put together. If there are any inaccuracies, please let us know. Similarly, if there are any further memories or recollections that the stories may prompt, it would be good to add to the Kippax store of knowledge.
At Armistice, we often hear the words ‘lest we forget’ and ‘we will remember them’, but as time passes, if we have little information to remember, it becomes easy to forget. Those veterans fortunate enough to return from the Great War were usually extremely reluctant to discuss their experiences, and would generally only do so with serving comrades, so we have very few stories passed down to us by word of mouth. However, by piecing together letters, postcards, army service records, War diaries and newspaper articles, it is possible to bring the past to life again, to tell those untold stories, and hopefully to give us something by which to remember our villagers.
To mark the 100 year anniversary commemorating the end of the First World War, we not only wanted to remember the 61 men listed on the Kippax and Ledston Luck War Memorial, but all our men and women who served. For many of us, these villagers are the stock that we come from: the houses they rented, are the homes we now own. They were ordinary villagers who lived through extraordinary times, and became an extraordinary generation. Their fascinating lives are worthy of remembrance.
Kippax Armistice Commemoration Planning Group, June 2018
Kippax Roll of Honour 