Editorial - Re: Monument for Aubrey Cosens, Victoria Cross Recipient (Posthumous)

A WORTHY MEMORIAL

There is a proposal for the building of a community centre in Timmins as a memorial to Sergt. Aubrey Cosens, V.C., the first Timmins man to win the Victoria Cross in this war. There may be special popular appeal about such a plan, but it does not appear quite broad enough. The memorial should be to Sergt. Cosens, V.C., but it should also be a memorial those other gallant men from Timmins who will return here no more. It should be also for those soldiers, sailors and airmen who went from this town and district and will return ill or maimed. It should be for those gallant lads whose fortune it may be to return hale and hearty. They all offered their strength, their health, their all in defence of freedom and the right. The memorial should be for all who served so nobly and so well.

Probably no form of memorial could be more fitting than a community centre building. Such a building is sadly needed here. The fact that it will serve as a useful and a helpful purpose makes it all the more appropriate as a monument to commemorate the greatness of the men who served. It is the sort of memorial that servicemen themselves would approve. In prominent position on such a community centre should appear a plaque explaining the reason and the meaning of the memorial. The centre should be known by some such mane as the "Servicemen's Memorial Centre". While it is true that it may be some time yet before it will be possible to commence actual construction of such a memorial, it is certainly not too early to make plans and preparations. Now is the time to arrange the broad outlines of such a fitting memorial and to arrange the details for a structure that will be as impress as the services it will commemorate.