For the second year in a row, COVID-19 prevented Barrie’s Royal Canadian Legion branch and the City of Barrie from hosting an in-person Remembrance Day ceremony, but that didn’t stop members of the public from the time-honoured tradition of meeting at the downtown cenotaph to pay their respects.
Shortly before 11 a.m., a crowd started arriving at Memorial Square, encircling the cenotaph.
“It is absolutely inspiring,” Tim Shaughnessy, former president of Barrie's Royal Canadian Legion branch, told BarrieToday when asked if it was good to see people coming down to the cenotaph on their own volition without the traditional events taking place.
“There are some communities who are having parades. I know Pentang is having one, but we’re not,” Shaughnessy added. “There is a small ceremony at the legion today, invitation only, but I bet there will be more people here.
"This is wonderful to see.”
When the clock struck 11 a.m., an unidentified man walked to the cenotaph base in the centre of the crowd and announced what time it was. The crowd fell silent and a bugle was heard somewhere in the distance, although it couldn’t be seen.
Church bells also began to ring.
With restrictions in place last year also, there was no official ceremony in 2020, but a bugle played The Last Post and the Reveille from a Dunlop Street window.
That did not happen this year and after the moment of silence, attendees began to line up and leave their poppies on the cenotaph or on one of the several wreaths left at the base of the historic monument.
Shaugnessy says he had hoped someone would have played the traditional bugle, but that his thoughts were more where they are every year at this time.
“I’m thinking of my dad, who was a World War Two veteran. He died a few years ago now and we’ll go out and visit him at his resting place after this, but he is who I am always thinking about at this time," he said.
Susan Bransfer and her two children were at the cenotaph as she was on her work break. She told BarrieToday she wouldn’t have missed being there.
“I have never missed honouring 11 a.m. in all my life, since I can remember. I respect the decision to not have an official ceremony, but there is never going to be a time that Canadians won’t gather to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice and say thank you to those who made it home,” Bransfer said.
