Services of remembrance are to be held across Southwark this week, including a centenary ceremony for a Bermondsey battalion in Old Jamaica Road.
The first service will be on Armistice Day (Thursday, November 11), and another will be held on Remembrance Sunday (Sunday, November 14), with both starting at 10.45am.
Gary Magold, who is organising the West Lane services, will make a short announcement at the start of the ceremony to ask anyone who wants to lay a wreath or a bunch of flowers during the service to let him know.
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This year marks a return to the Remembrance Sunday service at West Lane, after a coronavirus-enforced break last year.
Meanwhile a special centenary service is going to be held at Old Jamaica Road by the Queen’s Court block of flats, which commemorates the 22nd battalion of the London regiment (Queen’s) and its successor unit, the sixth (Bermondsey) battalion.
The service will take place at 10am on Sunday (November 14) to allow people to go to other ceremonies afterwards.
Peter Swanson, Lieutenant-Colonel of the sixth (Bermondsey) Battalion of the Queen’s Royal Regiment, said: “This year’s event is particularly significant because it is the 100th anniversary of the memorial’s inauguration in 1921, three years after the end of World War 1. On the memorial are inscribed nearly 1000 names of soldiers from this single battalion who died during this war.
“There is also a plaque attached to commemorate the fallen of sixth (Bermondsey) Battalion the Queen’s Royal Regiment during World War 2. This Battalion was the successor unit to 22nd Londons after the reorganisation of the Territorial Army in the 1930s. Further reorganisations of the Army since the 1960s have resulted in several regimental amalgamations and today the Queen’s Royal Regiment lives on within the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment whose First Battalion is currently based in Woolwich.
“Because of the special nature of this year’s event a small detachment from this Battalion (1 PWRR) will parade in front of the Memorial for the ceremony. Associated with the Memorial are also the cadets of 72 (Bermondsey) Detachment Army Cadet Force, based at Bacons College, who also proudly wear the badge of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment and are always on the lookout for enthusiastic young recruits.”
The official Southwark service for Remembrance Sunday will take place at The Southwark Memorial, Walworth Square, on Sunday (November 14) at 10.50am. The service will be led by Canon Jonathan Sedgwick, acting Archdeacon of Southwark.
Another service will take place as usual at St Saviour’s memorial on Borough High Street.
All are welcome to all services.
Bermondsey remembers: Armistice Day service at West Lane War Memorial