Members of the Seend branch of the Royal British Legion are to join thousands of veterans on a pilgrimage of Remembrance to the World War 1 battlefields, culminating in a parade and ceremony in Ypres as part of the end of First World War centenary commemorations this August.
Branch member Roger Brind says, “The Royal British Legion event, known as the Great Pilgrimage 90 (GP90), takes place between 5th and 9th August and will be one of the largest in the charity’s history.
GP90 will mark 90 years since the original Royal British Legion Pilgrimage in 1928, which saw 11,000 World War One veterans and war widows visit the battlefields of the Somme in France and Ypres in Belgium, a decade after the conflict ended.
That Pilgrimage ended with a march through Ypres to the Commonwealth War Grave Commission’s Menin Gate Memorial for a ceremony to commemorate the launch of The Hundred Days Offensive and in remembrance of those who never returned.
Local Legion members Kevin Toft and Robin Heatley will represent the Seend branch and the local community at the event, as standard bearer and wreath layer respectively. They will tour some of the same battlefields and cemeteries visited by those on the 1928 Pilgrimage, before marching along the route through Ypres, to the Menin Gate on the 8th August, bearing their branch standard and a wreath.
They will join a parade of more than 2,200 other Legion representatives and dignitaries, including civic and military guests from the UK, Commonwealth and Northern Europe.
Once at the Menin Gate, Robin will lay a wreath on behalf of the Seend community. In addition to a tribute from the branch chairman, Colonel Nigel Knocker, it will contain a message from a child at Seend Primary School, where the local branch has given a series of talks to the children since the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WW1 in August 2014.”
Col Knocker said, “Great Pilgrimage 90 is an unique opportunity for the Legion community to come together and to proudly bear our standards along the same route in Ypres taken 90 years earlier by the veterans and widows of the First World War. The branch looks forward with pride to representing the village of Seend at this memorable event.”
