A special re-dedication ceremony at the newly-refurbished garden of remembrance was held in Port St Mary on the centenary of the outbreak of World War One last Tuesday.
It was ‘a wonderful service in the storm,’ said commissioners’ clerk Alastair Hamilton, led by Rev Joe Heaton there was music by some members of Rushen Silver Band.
‘There was an incredible community response,’ added Mr Hamilton. ‘Two people wanted to donate roses for lost ones.’
One of the 60 present was Port St Mary’s Hazel Dean, aged 103, and it prompted memories of her brother Vernon, a test pilot lost during the Second World War on a test flight of a bomber.
She said: ‘I’m very touched by it, I think it’s a wonderful job done by the local men and it does not depress, it’s a memorial which gives something to our village.
‘We are not meant to stand and cry in front of it, we are meant to appreciate what they gave for us and to look at what they can no longer see. They gave us by their loss what we value most now.’
The authority took over responsibility for the garden when the Port St Mary branch of the Royal British Legion closed in 2012. They decided the garden, first laid in 1975, needed refreshing and the new scheme includes granite slab paving with the names of the fallen from the village carved on two granite sentinels; a brass poppy design screen forms the backdrop.
Mr Hamilton said the scheme cost ‘under £50,000’ and was financed from the authority’s reserves.
Work began in August and was finished on November 7, just in time for Remembrance Day. Commissioners’ chairman Bernadette McCabe said: ‘We are very proud of the men of our village who fought and, in some cases, perished in the World Wars and subsequent conflicts. We now have a fitting memorial to them. In redesigning this garden of remembrance we have sought to make it not only a permanent place of quiet within the village but to make it accessible to all. It is possibly the best viewpoint that we have over the bay and now anyone who wants to sit and appreciate it will have the chance to do so.’