Lest anyone should panic during the week of March 10, Orangeville's Cenotaph and its bronze statue of a Great War soldier will be leaving town - but both will return in time for Remembrance Day 2008.

As well, says Frank Lomack, Cenotaph restoration committee chairman and Royal Canadian Legion Branch 233 past president, they'll return looking almost exactly as they did when first erected in 1923.

The only two differences will be the addition of names of fallen soldiers from wars that have happened since 1945, as well as the absence of lead in the lettering.

The Honour Rolls from the two world wars will appear exactly as they now appear upon the face of the Cenotaph. The wars beyond 1945 - Korea, possibly Vietnam, Bosnia, Somalia, and notably Afghanistan, among others, will have their special places. (Currently, there's one name from the Korean war, and one to be added for Afghanistan - Corporal Matthew McCully.)

Mr. Lomack and his committee - former Legion president Ken Manwell, Mayor Rob Adams, former mayor Drew Brown, secretaries Jill Broyden (former) and Helen Flemming (current) - opted not to do a simple "patch-up" sort of job.

WHILE AT A DISTANCE the ravages of time may seem minimal, closer inspection shows the wear and tear that the memorial to our local fallen soldiers has endured. Mr. Lomack said the Cenotaph has what amount to faceplates on all sides. One suggestion had been to overlay the existing plates with black granite or something similar, "but I thought that would look kind of crappy (by comparison with the current design)," so the committee went with an authentic restoration recommended by Smith Monument Co. Ltd. of Toronto.

This involves stripping the faceplates and replacing them with new ones bearing exact copies of the names as they now appear. But then, said Mr. Lomack, "you'll be able to read them from a block away." Now it's difficult to read them all from close up.

The unknown aspect is how deteriorated the bronze statue might be after 85 years. Even if it has deteriorated from the interior, the estimated restoration cost would still be no more than a few dollars short of $60,000.

Orangeville has committed $20,000 to the restoration. An application has been made for $25,000 from a federal fund for Cenotaph restorations. Mr. Lomack said he's hoping that most of the balance would be available from the Poppy Fund.

The Cenotaph in 1923 was apparently an initiative of the Great War Veterans Association. (It later was amalgamated into the Canadian Legion, British Empire Service League. Col. Fitzgerald Branch, Orangeville, was chartered in 1935. Subsequently, the Canadian Legion earned the Royal designation, and the BESL disappeared from the Royal Canadian Legion name).

Financing in 1923 came from a War Memorial Fund with support from the Town of Orangeville and County of Dufferin.