Danger maroons silenced forever (From Stroud News and Journal)

Danger maroons silenced forever

THE last post has been sounded for Remembrance Day cannon blasts after the maroons normally used to mark the two-minute silence were deemed too dangerous.

Last November the giant fireworks used to mark the beginning and end of the traditional two-minutes' silence fell dangerously close to members of the public attending the ceremony at Stroud's Subscription Rooms. At the time many blamed the disruption on disrespectful yobs.

But now at Ebley Mill, which provided the maroons to six of the district's towns in the past, looks set to withdraw them.

"Ironically they were a new type of maroon that had been introduced in response to tighter health and safety legislation," said council spokesman David Marshall. "We've been doing this for seven or eight years and never had this problem before.

"But now we have it's inevitably brought up the health and safety issue and highlighted the danger." "It's not a situation we wanted to be in but we can't ignore it.

"We don't want to withdraw them, and we totally hold with paying respect to those who gave their lives and that is a national institution. "Frankly, we're gutted about it."

The council is now stumped about how to announce the silence. "We can't think of an obvious solution to the problem," said Mr Marshall. "We need something to make a short, sharp noise."

A sad Ron Bishop, vice chairman of the Stroud branch of the Royal British Legion, said he accepted the maroons would probably have to go.

"Stroud is pretty built up and once the rockets were fired off we had no control over them," he said. "If the wind was blowing in the wrong way we could have had a problem."

He said there had also been difficulties synchronising the silence at different spots across the town, so there had been a ragged volley of maroons going off around 11am rather than an ordered, matching silence. He said: "It was a damn good effort but it didn't achieve its aim."