Remembrance Sunday 2020 | The Beacon Parish

Ditchling, Streat and Westmeston Remembered

on Sunday 8th November 2020

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn;

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

we will remember them.”

On Sunday 8th November, Remembrance Sunday, RBL Ditchling and District Branch with our President, Mrs Virginia Lewis-Jones, Vice President, Mrs Juliet Smith in her role as Deputy Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, Chairman Mr Tom Jones, Standard Bearer, Mr Colin Marshall and members of the Committee gathered to remember and honour those who made the ultimate sacrifice in WW1 and WW2. The Service and Act of Remembrance was led by Revd David Wallis.

In this time of Covid-19 unable to hold our usual Parade together with the Beavers, Brownies, Scouts and of course the Burgess Hill Marching Youth Band it was a much simpler affair.

We were able to be socially distanced around the War Memorial and had a good number of Villagers who wanted to pay their respects whilst being able to socially distance themselves on the roads around the War Memorial.

The morning was quiet and misty until the sun broke through at exactly 11.00am. We thank Mrs Sue Marshall for playing a recording of the Last Post and Reveille, which had a haunting sound in the quiet.

The President, Vice President and other members of the Committee laid all the wreaths on behalf of those local organisations unable to attend this year.

We had a small service of Remembrance at the Streat Memorial.

Thank you to Paul Charman for taking the service, Mike Sewell for organising the music, Mark Moody Stuart read out the names on the Memorial.

Crosses had been laid on Saturday.

Sue Sewell laid the wreath on behalf of the villagers of Streat.

Tessa Haughton laid the wreath on behalf of the villagers of Westmeston.

Only a small number of people attended as we had not encouraged people to come to make sure we followed the social distance rules.