‘Lest we forget’^*

* The phrase ‘lest we forget’ was originally penned by Rudyard Kipling in his 1897 ‘Recessional’ poem, and is sometimes added as a post script to Laurence Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’. ‘For the Fallen’ was written during the first months of the First World War, and published in The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914. The lines ‘Lest we forget’ and also ‘We shall remember them’ (from ‘For the Fallen’) are sometimes seen on war memorials and used in commemorative material on war remembrance days, especially in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

: a veteran and son share a ‘warfare tourism’ experience

ABSTRACT

‘Warfare tourism’ represents an increasingly significant dimension of contemporary tourism. This paper provides a fresh perspective on participation in ‘warfare tourism’ by investigating the behaviour and experiences of a living veteran and his son returning to two theatres of war in which the veteran had served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Active interviews with the two family members were used to gather rich data regarding the two extended trips, which had been funded by ‘Heroes Return’, to Australia in 2012 and Sri Lanka in 2013. The findings indicate that some of the facets of visiting the fallen at other dark tourism sites, such as empathetic identification and personal connection, are also very relevant to trips shared between the living. However, with the living these contribute to a powerful co-created experience in which ‘closer’ bonds between the travellers can be developed. Furthermore, whilst the experiences at times represented ‘bitter-sweet’ nostalgia for the veteran, they also provided the son with the opportunity to ‘look through his father’s eyes’ from both a past and current perspective. Given that there will be war veterans as long as conflicts exist, the results have valuable messages for all those dealing with veterans in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Dark tourism
• warfare
• Heroes Return

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Paul Fallon is a senior lecturer in tourism at Sheffield Business School, Sheffield. Hallam University, UK, and holds a Ph.D. His academic and professional backgrounds mean that he is a generalist with a broad knowledge of tourism and hospitality, although he has a particular passion for history and historical perspectives. Paul’s role at Sheffield Hallam is mainly a teaching one, but he is an active researcher and reviewer, and also one of the coordinators of the Network of Tourism Academics (a support network for tourism researchers in the UK).

Peter Robinson is head of department for marketing, innovation, leisure and enterprise at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He is an award-winning lecturer, with a passion for teaching and a flair for inspiring and motivating students. Prior to entering academia Peter gained experience in the public, private and voluntary sectors within tourism, hospitality and events management, including management roles with the National Trust. Peter has also worked as a freelance tourism and events consultant and has gained experience developing businesses in the tourism, events and ICT sectors. He is currently completing his Ph.D. Paul and Peter have also co-edited Operations Management in the Travel Industry (2nd edition), published by CABI in 2016.

ORCiD

Paul Fallon http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8156-2894

Notes

* The phrase ‘lest we forget’ was originally penned by Rudyard Kipling in his 1897 ‘Recessional’ poem, and is sometimes added as a post script to Laurence Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’. ‘For the Fallen’ was written during the first months of the First World War, and published in The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914. The lines ‘Lest we forget’ and also ‘We shall remember them’ (from ‘For the Fallen’) are sometimes seen on war memorials and used in commemorative material on war remembrance days, especially in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.