In 1987, I was 17 and a member of the Boys Brigade. On Remembrance Sunday, 8th November I attended a service at the war memorial in Enniskillen to lay a poppy wreath.
Shortly after 10.30am there was a deafening bomb explosion with rubble, glass and choking dust showering us. As a thick fog descended it was if someone had switched off the lights and then came the silence, before the cries for help. I dropped the poppy wreath and ran over to help people from the collapsed building. At the time we went to remember our dead, we didn’t expect to be digging them out.
Before leaving the scene I spotted the poppy wreath which I had dropped earlier. I picked it up from the rubble and carried it home. A poppy wreath that was never laid but has a story to tell of prayers of hope and healing overcoming tragedy on Remembrance Day.