As usual Loughborough held its magnificent Remembrance Day Service in the beautiful Queen’s Park. It was a relatively mild day weatherwise for the time of year, but I was surprised at how wet under foot the ground was, as I hadn’t really noticed, but we must have had a lot of rain recently.
As last year, we didn’t manage to get an order of service, but we heard people mention that there was a copy online, so we stood amongst the crowd with our mobile phones on. Not that we really needed to know what was happening as it’s pretty much the same service every year. Having said that, however, I have to admit that the first hymn was completely unknown to me! Luckily, the people behind us seemed to know it so I was able to follow them, only the tune was clearly written for high voices, so I was singing along an octave lower!
This year was the first year that the Reverend Emily from All Saints led the service, and she was supported by the Chairman of the Royal British Legion, the mayor of Loughborough, and the Bishop of Leicester, with the Deputy Lieutenant of the County speaking last.
There seemed to be far more people in the crowd this year than I remember from previous years, but I got the impression that there were fewer military groups, and also fewer beavers, cubs, and scouts than in previous years, although in truth, I do struggle to see what’s going on around the carillon, given my height! Interestingly, there were a couple of large television screens in the park, so there was an opportunity for people to watch the action as it happened, but it did make for an interesting echo effect – or maybe that was just the new hearing aids playing tricks on the ears! I believe the event was streamed online too, so people who weren't able to come were able to watch from home.
The band seemed a bit quieter too – maybe the wind was blowing in the wrong direction – and most of the crowd missed the beginning of the National Anthem! And, we missed the gunshot at the end of the two minutes’ silence, which was replaced by a WW2 whistle!
After the service was finished we watched the dignitaries process out of the park. I took a few not very good pictures - including the back of one of our new Aldermen, the back of one of our Freemen, and the back of the university VC!
Then we hung around a while to look at the new sculpture representing Bing the dog, which was unveiled on Thursday last week, and event I missed as I was away. Bing served during the Second World War, and received the Dickin Medal for his bravery. He was standing with Songster, the war horse, and surrounded by poppies. So lovely that there are folk out there who decorate Songster with lovely purple poppies too – thank you! Thank you, too, to the people who decorate the tree trunks with knitted poppies.
Until next year.
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lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for
typos which are all mine!
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