Dear Friends,

In November, we remember those who left this village to fight for their country in two world wars and then paid the ultimate price for doing so. We keep silence and remember their valour and courage, along with their fallen comrades, in order to give us the freedoms we enjoy today. 

As an 8 year old child, my parents brought me to the beaches of Normandy and to the various museums that record the events of D Day in June 1944 when Allied Forces landed in France in order to bring to an end the tyranny of Nazi Germany’s occupation of Western Europe. I was also taken to the British Military Cemetery in Bayeux and the American Military Cemetery behind Omaha Beach, to see for myself, the human cost involved. The rows of grey tomb stones and white crosses ran as far as the eye could see, each representing a fallen soldier, somebody’s father or brother.     

Those experiences have never left me. History teaches us that war is sometimes necessary but only when all peaceful means of resolving a conflict between different countries have been exhausted. The cost in human terms of any armed conflict, as demonstrated by the cemeteries I visited in Normandy, will always be high and that is something we forget at our peril.

On Remembrance Sunday, I hope you will join with me in praying for peace and join in remembering the fallen and the sacrifices that have been made on our behalf. At the going down of the sun, we will remember them.

We will remember them.    

God bless,

Andrew