--- In fellwalkingclub@..., helmut_hudler2
<no_reply@y...> wrote:
> Hi Lin,
>
> I cannot read what is written on that plaque, but your comment is
> that this is a war memorial.
> Taking part in the discussions of the OFC, I would very much
> appriciate to join the walkers, to commemorate the madness of war
> committed by both sides, and to celebrate international
> understanding having taken place instead.
>
This is the wording on the plaque:

"In glorious & happy memory of those whose names are inscribed below -
members of this club who died for their country in the European War
1914-1918. These fells were acquired by their fellow members & by them
vested in the National Trust for the use & enjoyment of the people of
our land for all time."

There follows the list of 20 members who were believed killed during
the conflict.

The Gable Memorial was unveiled on 8 June 1924. Geoffrey Winthrop
Young, a distinguished mountaineer, poet and educator who had himself
lost a leg whilst working with the Friends Ambulance Unit during the
War, spoke in tribute.

"Upon this mountain summit we are met today to dedicate this space
of hills to freedom.
Upon this rock are set the names of men - our brothers, and our
comrades upon these cliffs who held, with us, that there is no freedom
of the soil where the spirit of man is in bondage; and who surrendered
their part in the fellowship of hill and wind and sunshine, that the
freedom of this land, the freedom of our spirit, should endure.
This bronze stands high upon the crowning glory of our free land, as
a sign between us and them; our covenant that those to whom in the
time to come we, too, shall be but as these names, or as less than
these names, still hold their freedom of this splendour of height,
still breathe its fearless health, the inspiration of its faultless
pleasure; free still, amid these untrammelled forces, to perfect their
own vision of what is beautiful, interpret for themselves their own
discovery of what seems true.
By this ceremony we consecrate a twofold remembrance; in token that
these men gave their mortality of manhood for a redemption of earthly
freedom, this rock stands, a witness, perishable also in the onset of
time, that this realm of mountain earth is, in their honour, free. In
token that their sacrifice bears witness still, beyond death, to the
imperishable ideal of spiritual liberty, we commit today, not in
bronze, but in unalterable faith, our thought of their triumph in the
spirit to these spaces of power and light!
By this symbol we affirm a twofold trust: that which hills only can
give their children, the disciplining of strength in freedom, the
freeing of the spirit through generous service, these free hills shall
live again, and for all time.
The memory of all that these children of the hills have given -
service, and inspiration, fulfilled, and perpetual - this free heart
of our hills shall guard."
Geoffrey Winthrop Young, 8 June 1924

To add to the poignancy of the occasion - 8th June 1924 was the day
Mllory and Irvine disappeared on Everest.

PP