Leonard Cheshire sermon
Title
Leonard Cheshire sermon
Description
Sermon preached by Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, DSO, DFC in Liverpool Cathedral. Briefly mentions history of mankind and need to dedicate ourselves to that cause for which so many died in the last war. Mentions WW1 and aftermath and introduction of armistice day and tomb of unknown soldier. Covers lead up to the war and gives reasons for fighting. Continues with need to go back to two minutes silence. Submitted with caption 'On original container "Liverpool 8th September 1974". Leonard Cheshire's sermon at Liverpool Cathedral on 8 September 1974. Leonard talks about remembrance and what it was like to grow up in the aftermath of the First World War and fight in the Second World War. He gives his ideas for creating and maintaining peace'.
Creator
Date
1974-09-08
Language
Type
Format
Audio recording 00:22:18
Publisher
Rights
This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.
Identifier
SCheshireGL72021v20007-0001, SCheshireGL72021v20007-0001-Transcript
Transcription
Leonard Cheshire Resonate Project
File Title: Sermon Preached by Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, DSO, DFC in Liverpool Cathedral on Sunday 8th September 1974
Preservation Copy
Duration: 22 minutes 20 seconds
Transcription Date: 27.02.2020
Archive Number: AV-S:10
Start of Transcription
00:04 Leonard Cheshire: Well, I would like first and foremost to say how privileged I feel at having been invited to stand here and give this address on this occasion. And also not only on my own behalf, but on all those who have been invited here, to express our appreciation to the Dean for his welcome and for all the arrangements he has made this afternoon.
00:42 And I would like to start my address with some words spoken by Our Lord eight days before his Transfiguration. He said “He who wants to save his life will lose it, but he who loses it for My sake will win it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul.” That was the first occasion when He disclosed how He was going to carry out his life’s work, that is the reconciliation of man and God – unity between man and God. What He was saying of course applied to our eternal destiny. To ourselves. But those words also have an application on a more human and mundane level and it’s about that, that I would like to talk this afternoon.
02:14 We are here today for a moment of remembrance, of thanksgiving and dedication. We have come to remember the debt that we owe to all those who have gone before us particularly those who lay down their lives in two World Wars in order that we might have peace.
02:49 But not only them because throughout the ages from the day that the first man set out to conquer the jungle, until today, men and women have struggled and worked and fought to bring about peace. To bring about a better world and in remembering those who have fallen we remember the others also. We give thanks for all the benefits that have been handed down to us and which perhaps we take too much for granted.
03:45 What we are today is what we were in the past. We cannot disassociate ourselves from what has gone before. We give thanks for the benefits we have received, and we make up our minds to do something about the mistakes of the past. And finally we are here, most important of all, to dedicate ourselves to the present and to the future. To dedicate ourselves to that cause for which so many died; in the last war, although you may find it difficult to believe the figure, 55 million, died in the hope of bringing peace.
04:49 And in order to consider how we can best make this act of dedication, I would like to go back for a moment to the day when my generation was like so many in this great Cathedral today, setting out on life. We grew up in the aftermath of the first World War. We rejected war as a means of solving international difficulties, but we lived under the shadow of that war. We were astounded that men could have fought and put up with, what they did in that First World War. Today I remember vividly the impression of those books - made upon me. Of how men could live and work and fight under such conditions and not lose their nerve.
06:14 Above all I remember one particular occasion - Armistice Day it was called. The entire nation for a brief period of two minutes suddenly stood still and remembered and gave thanks and attempted to dedicate themselves to see that it would never happen again. I was too young, I think, to understand it but I felt that I was taking part in something much bigger than myself. Something that although I couldn’t understand, I knew had dignity and meaning. I think we felt identified with those who had given so much in that war.
07:16 Looking back, I think that it was one of the great mistakes we have made to give it up. Also then there was the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which meant more to us then, than perhaps it does today. I would like to remind you of how the Unknown Soldier came to be in Westminster Abbey. The idea originated independently, but I think at about the same time, in France and in Britain.5
08:05 In France it was a printer who suggested that an unknown soldier should be buried amongst the great of the nation. In Britain it was a Church of England Chaplain. In France it was the Press who persuaded the Government to do it. In Britain it was the Dean of Westminster Abbey. And so from all the battlefields, the main battlefields of the Western Front, were chosen unidentified dead. They were brought, they were put in a Chapel and changed and interchanged so that nobody knew which, was which, and then this coffin was brought across the Channel. It was brought through an entire French Division of all arms, to pay their respect to this unknown British dead.
09:21 And at Westminster Abbey the King himself was waiting to receive it. Nobody in our history has been so great as to receive an honour like that and I suggest that the real reason is not just because of the sacrifice and the courage that he exemplifies but because he symbolizes that universal deep desire in every human heart for peace and freedom and unity. A cause for which every generation is struggling.
10:19 But despite all that, the spectre of war walked the earth once again and a Second World War broke out. It was not just that it broke out, it was that it needn’t have done. Not if our eyes had been open. Not if we had faced up with enough realism to what was gradually growing as a threat across the Channel.
10:56 But in those days, if you cast your minds back, the talk was about the economy and about balance of payments. We didn’t want to know about Czechoslavakia. It was far away. We hoped that everything would be alright. And nearly every Government vied to spend the lowest it could on defence. And so in 1940, a year previously or two years previously having been in a position of strength, we the Western Allies, were in a position of desperation. Well what was the spirit of war and where were the lessons we learnt?
11:58 There are two principle ones in my mind. The first that when there is unity of purpose, when men know what it is that they have got to do and there is no doubt about it, almost the impossible can be achieved.
12:23 In war of course life is simple. There is no doubt in one’s mind what has to be done. There is a sense that as a nation one stands or falls together. The second lesson is how involved we are, one with another. How much we depend upon what other people do, even though we may not see them or know them. Whoever has served on active service knows how much he owes to others. Those who may have been given honour and public acclaim know that in fact it was on other men’s shoulders they were carried. There is hardly such a thing as individual achievement. The achievement is that of a team and the team as so often is said, is as strong as its’ weakest member.
13:45 We fought of course, in order to save ourselves and Europe and other parts of the world from tyranny and oppression, but there was more to it than that. A war on such a scale as that one fought couldn’t be justified by that alone. We fought because we hoped and believed that at the end of it, the world would live in peace.
14:21 But for a second time the promise was not fulfilled. We did not find peace, and so one asks oneself what now was our duty? What could we do in the post war period to contribute towards that cause for which so many had died and in whose name we today are gathered together.
14:55 It was a question I could not answer. But circumstances led me, as with most people, into my own particular work and life. For me it was amongst the disabled, so to speak I forgot the cause of peace because I was totally occupied.
15:30 And what is the lesson I have learnt there? Again there are two principle lessons. The first is, that there is nobody in the world, however humble, however helpless, who has not got his own unique contribution to make to the good of others.
16:06 We tend to think that only those in high office or who have power and responsibility can contribute to the good and unity of the world. It is not true. If, for instance, you take somebody who has no use in any of her limbs. I know one who has no use in any of her limbs except one big toe but nonetheless with the help of modern technology and with others to help her, she can compose poetry, she can conduct a conversation through an electronic typewriter. If such a person does nothing all her life but set an example of how to make the most of her circumstances, how not to complain, how to remain cheerful, would any of us dare say that our contribution, no matter what our position, was greater than hers? No, because no man can do more than his own opportunities and resources enable him. And the true test is not the achievement.
17:51 I have come to think that the achievement doesn’t count, what counts is the effort, the sacrifice. What have we done relative to our opportunities? That is the way God will judge us. Achievements can be swept away overnight. We may never live to see them. But the effort remains and is remembered, and other people will draw strength and inspiration from it. And so all of us, whoever we are, has a contribution to make to the peace and unity of the world.
18:50 I also discovered that our own fulfilment, self-fulfilment, even our own material problems are solved not by concentrating upon ones’ self but upon concentrating on something outside ourselves. The more we give ourselves and spend ourselves for others, the more our own problems will be solved and the more self-fulfilled and complete we will be.
19:34 That is true not just as individuals but as communities and as a nation. But what is needed is that we should know what we are about. That we should pause, as we pause today, for a moment to remember and to give thanks and to dedicate ourselves as best we can to work for that cause.
20:13 I suggest that we should never have given up that two minutes silence on November 11th. That we for one moment in the year, as a nation, should stand silently before our own consciences and before God - but also before the world - to show that we mean to continue that struggle to bring about a better world.
20:53 Ceremony has its part in all human affairs, and I know of no ceremony more dignified, more meaningful, more applicable to everybody whether young or old, no ceremony that arises more naturally out of the sacrifice of two World Wars than that.
21:24 My own deep hope is that one day it will come back to our nation and that our nation will be seen as one of the leaders, small though perhaps we are, in the family of nations in the cause of peace, and that we will know that our own good comes not in striving for our good but in striving for the good of others and that those words “ He who wants to save his life will lose it, but he that loses it for My sake” in this context working for the good of others will find it.
End of Transcription
22.15 Speech Ends
22.20 End of Recording
File Title: Sermon Preached by Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, DSO, DFC in Liverpool Cathedral on Sunday 8th September 1974
Preservation Copy
Duration: 22 minutes 20 seconds
Transcription Date: 27.02.2020
Archive Number: AV-S:10
Start of Transcription
00:04 Leonard Cheshire: Well, I would like first and foremost to say how privileged I feel at having been invited to stand here and give this address on this occasion. And also not only on my own behalf, but on all those who have been invited here, to express our appreciation to the Dean for his welcome and for all the arrangements he has made this afternoon.
00:42 And I would like to start my address with some words spoken by Our Lord eight days before his Transfiguration. He said “He who wants to save his life will lose it, but he who loses it for My sake will win it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul.” That was the first occasion when He disclosed how He was going to carry out his life’s work, that is the reconciliation of man and God – unity between man and God. What He was saying of course applied to our eternal destiny. To ourselves. But those words also have an application on a more human and mundane level and it’s about that, that I would like to talk this afternoon.
02:14 We are here today for a moment of remembrance, of thanksgiving and dedication. We have come to remember the debt that we owe to all those who have gone before us particularly those who lay down their lives in two World Wars in order that we might have peace.
02:49 But not only them because throughout the ages from the day that the first man set out to conquer the jungle, until today, men and women have struggled and worked and fought to bring about peace. To bring about a better world and in remembering those who have fallen we remember the others also. We give thanks for all the benefits that have been handed down to us and which perhaps we take too much for granted.
03:45 What we are today is what we were in the past. We cannot disassociate ourselves from what has gone before. We give thanks for the benefits we have received, and we make up our minds to do something about the mistakes of the past. And finally we are here, most important of all, to dedicate ourselves to the present and to the future. To dedicate ourselves to that cause for which so many died; in the last war, although you may find it difficult to believe the figure, 55 million, died in the hope of bringing peace.
04:49 And in order to consider how we can best make this act of dedication, I would like to go back for a moment to the day when my generation was like so many in this great Cathedral today, setting out on life. We grew up in the aftermath of the first World War. We rejected war as a means of solving international difficulties, but we lived under the shadow of that war. We were astounded that men could have fought and put up with, what they did in that First World War. Today I remember vividly the impression of those books - made upon me. Of how men could live and work and fight under such conditions and not lose their nerve.
06:14 Above all I remember one particular occasion - Armistice Day it was called. The entire nation for a brief period of two minutes suddenly stood still and remembered and gave thanks and attempted to dedicate themselves to see that it would never happen again. I was too young, I think, to understand it but I felt that I was taking part in something much bigger than myself. Something that although I couldn’t understand, I knew had dignity and meaning. I think we felt identified with those who had given so much in that war.
07:16 Looking back, I think that it was one of the great mistakes we have made to give it up. Also then there was the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which meant more to us then, than perhaps it does today. I would like to remind you of how the Unknown Soldier came to be in Westminster Abbey. The idea originated independently, but I think at about the same time, in France and in Britain.5
08:05 In France it was a printer who suggested that an unknown soldier should be buried amongst the great of the nation. In Britain it was a Church of England Chaplain. In France it was the Press who persuaded the Government to do it. In Britain it was the Dean of Westminster Abbey. And so from all the battlefields, the main battlefields of the Western Front, were chosen unidentified dead. They were brought, they were put in a Chapel and changed and interchanged so that nobody knew which, was which, and then this coffin was brought across the Channel. It was brought through an entire French Division of all arms, to pay their respect to this unknown British dead.
09:21 And at Westminster Abbey the King himself was waiting to receive it. Nobody in our history has been so great as to receive an honour like that and I suggest that the real reason is not just because of the sacrifice and the courage that he exemplifies but because he symbolizes that universal deep desire in every human heart for peace and freedom and unity. A cause for which every generation is struggling.
10:19 But despite all that, the spectre of war walked the earth once again and a Second World War broke out. It was not just that it broke out, it was that it needn’t have done. Not if our eyes had been open. Not if we had faced up with enough realism to what was gradually growing as a threat across the Channel.
10:56 But in those days, if you cast your minds back, the talk was about the economy and about balance of payments. We didn’t want to know about Czechoslavakia. It was far away. We hoped that everything would be alright. And nearly every Government vied to spend the lowest it could on defence. And so in 1940, a year previously or two years previously having been in a position of strength, we the Western Allies, were in a position of desperation. Well what was the spirit of war and where were the lessons we learnt?
11:58 There are two principle ones in my mind. The first that when there is unity of purpose, when men know what it is that they have got to do and there is no doubt about it, almost the impossible can be achieved.
12:23 In war of course life is simple. There is no doubt in one’s mind what has to be done. There is a sense that as a nation one stands or falls together. The second lesson is how involved we are, one with another. How much we depend upon what other people do, even though we may not see them or know them. Whoever has served on active service knows how much he owes to others. Those who may have been given honour and public acclaim know that in fact it was on other men’s shoulders they were carried. There is hardly such a thing as individual achievement. The achievement is that of a team and the team as so often is said, is as strong as its’ weakest member.
13:45 We fought of course, in order to save ourselves and Europe and other parts of the world from tyranny and oppression, but there was more to it than that. A war on such a scale as that one fought couldn’t be justified by that alone. We fought because we hoped and believed that at the end of it, the world would live in peace.
14:21 But for a second time the promise was not fulfilled. We did not find peace, and so one asks oneself what now was our duty? What could we do in the post war period to contribute towards that cause for which so many had died and in whose name we today are gathered together.
14:55 It was a question I could not answer. But circumstances led me, as with most people, into my own particular work and life. For me it was amongst the disabled, so to speak I forgot the cause of peace because I was totally occupied.
15:30 And what is the lesson I have learnt there? Again there are two principle lessons. The first is, that there is nobody in the world, however humble, however helpless, who has not got his own unique contribution to make to the good of others.
16:06 We tend to think that only those in high office or who have power and responsibility can contribute to the good and unity of the world. It is not true. If, for instance, you take somebody who has no use in any of her limbs. I know one who has no use in any of her limbs except one big toe but nonetheless with the help of modern technology and with others to help her, she can compose poetry, she can conduct a conversation through an electronic typewriter. If such a person does nothing all her life but set an example of how to make the most of her circumstances, how not to complain, how to remain cheerful, would any of us dare say that our contribution, no matter what our position, was greater than hers? No, because no man can do more than his own opportunities and resources enable him. And the true test is not the achievement.
17:51 I have come to think that the achievement doesn’t count, what counts is the effort, the sacrifice. What have we done relative to our opportunities? That is the way God will judge us. Achievements can be swept away overnight. We may never live to see them. But the effort remains and is remembered, and other people will draw strength and inspiration from it. And so all of us, whoever we are, has a contribution to make to the peace and unity of the world.
18:50 I also discovered that our own fulfilment, self-fulfilment, even our own material problems are solved not by concentrating upon ones’ self but upon concentrating on something outside ourselves. The more we give ourselves and spend ourselves for others, the more our own problems will be solved and the more self-fulfilled and complete we will be.
19:34 That is true not just as individuals but as communities and as a nation. But what is needed is that we should know what we are about. That we should pause, as we pause today, for a moment to remember and to give thanks and to dedicate ourselves as best we can to work for that cause.
20:13 I suggest that we should never have given up that two minutes silence on November 11th. That we for one moment in the year, as a nation, should stand silently before our own consciences and before God - but also before the world - to show that we mean to continue that struggle to bring about a better world.
20:53 Ceremony has its part in all human affairs, and I know of no ceremony more dignified, more meaningful, more applicable to everybody whether young or old, no ceremony that arises more naturally out of the sacrifice of two World Wars than that.
21:24 My own deep hope is that one day it will come back to our nation and that our nation will be seen as one of the leaders, small though perhaps we are, in the family of nations in the cause of peace, and that we will know that our own good comes not in striving for our good but in striving for the good of others and that those words “ He who wants to save his life will lose it, but he that loses it for My sake” in this context working for the good of others will find it.
End of Transcription
22.15 Speech Ends
22.20 End of Recording
Collection
Citation
G L Cheshire, “Leonard Cheshire sermon,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 15, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/40105.