Armistice day remembrance
St. Nicholas Cathedral has introduced its own Armistice Day service in the morning of 11th November where members and organisation from the community gather to pray together, held two minutes' silence and lay wreaths in front of the Cathedral's war memorial.
The Danish Church in Newcastle was there and laid a wreath, for those war sailors who gave their lives and also for those who survived but often lived on with scars on their souls from their experiences at sea.
They are no longer with us. But, we will remember them.
St Nicholas - the seafarers' saint
Newcastle's cathedral is named after St. Nicholas, traditionally the seafarers' saint and therefore the appropriate name for the cathedral in a great port city like Newcastle upon Tyne.
Many Danish churches in towns and cities near the sea are named after St. Nicholas for that reason. The church in my own childhood town of Rønne on Bornholm is Nikolaj Kirke and the former Danish Seamen's Church in Kingston upon Hull is similarly St. Nicholas Church.
Of course, St. Nicholas is also Santa Claus but in Danish he is "julemanden", the Yule Man, perhaps a throw-back to pre-Christian celebrations of Yule.
