Rye British Legion, led by Col Anthony Kimber, had a great day on the Somme with a party of over 40 from Rye, including the Mayor of Rye.
Actions considered at Albert, Fricourt, Mametz, Contalmaison, Lochnagar, La Boisselle, Pozieres, Orvillers and Thiepval. Rye Standard paraded at Thiepval along with moving tributes and wreaths laid by relatives on the graves of the fallen with connections to Rye.
Among the commemorations Paul Whiteman, Rye RBL Standard Bearer, laid a wreath on the grave of his Great Uncle James Whiteman who died at the Battle for Albert on the July 7 1916, Brian Beelan laid a wreath for his relative Pte Power who died just 16 years old and Roger Evans read out letters from the front line from his Grandfather’s brother and a moving poem written on hearing of his death .
The Hon. Peter Birts read a passage from Rupert Brooke’s “Forever England”
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
A most memorable day!
Photo by David Pawsey