SHIRLEY Royal British Legion will be joining thousands of others on a ‘pilgrimage of remembrance’ to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One.
The Royal British Legion event, known as Great Pilgrimage 90 (GP90), takes place between August 5 to 9 and will be one of the largest in the charity’s history.
Brian Holmes and Ken Russell will represent the Shirley Branch and community at the event, as standard bearer and wreath layer respectively.
This pilgrimage marks 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 culminated in a march through Ypres to the Commonwealth War Grave Commission’s Menin Gate Memorial for a ceremony to commemorate the launch of the 100-days Offensive, and in remembrance of those who never returned.
Brian and Ken will tour some of the same battlefields and cemeteries visited by those on the 1928 pilgrimage, before marching along the original route through Ypres, to the Menin Gate, where a wreath, which has a message from pupils at Kingswood School, will be laid.
Ernie Riley, President of the Shirley Branch of the Royal British Legion, said: “Great Pilgrimage 90 is a unique opportunity for the Legion community to come together and bear our Standards along the same route in Ypres taken 90 years earlier by the veterans and widows of the First World War.
“The Shirley Branch looks forward to proudly represent Shirley at the event.”
