The Deputy Lieutenant of Newham, Colonel Mike Dudding, our Mayor Sir Robin Wales and West Ham MP Lyn Brown was present. As well as veterans, parishioners, residents, 7 Rifles Territorial Army, Sea Cadets, Army Cadets, Councillors and Senior Council officers.
The Church is over a 1,000 years old and is the one of the oldest (or arguably the oldest) building in Newham and lies in in the heart of West Ham Ward. It is extremely impressive and I would encourage everyone to visit it.
The service was taken by the vicar, The Revd Stennett Kirby. He made a particular point of arguing that since in the Christian, Jewish and Muslim tradition, widows and orphans should be honoured, so therefore the spouses and children of servicemen and women who have been killed in recent Wars should not suffer from the Cuts that the Coalition government is proposing (No comment but check out this BBC link here).
Even though I am a lifelong atheist, as usual, I found the service and the ceremony profoundly moving.
After the last post and the two minutes silence, Mr Alf Gittings, a member of the Royal Navel Association read out
" They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them".
To which we all replied "We will remember them"
I did wonder during the service whether Beckton gas worker, Will Thorne, the founder of the GMB trade union and former West Ham Councillor, Mayor and MP, had ever attended a similar service in this very same Church? I assume he did. During the First World War he had joined the West Ham Volunteer Force with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. His eldest son also joined the army and was killed in action at Ypres in 1917.
There were at least three other remembrance events in Newham today. Check out my previous post about the 2007 West Ham All Saints service here and Thursday's East Ham Cenotaph ceremony here.
