Blandford’s Remembrance Service was brought forward to November 4, the day before lockdown started, and held not in the Market Place but in the Woodhouse Gardens, where the Town Mayor Cllr Lynn Lindsay said they should remember not only those who had died, but also those who returned or on the home fronts whose lives were forever changed.

“We owe a debt of gratitude that we can only repay by never forgetting and living to the ideals they fought for,” she said.

Prayers were led by the Rev Karen Wilson, and The Exhortation was read by Gyan Tamang and Kohima Epitaph by Lt Col Richard Dyer, Commanding Officer, Blandford Garrison Support Unit.

The two-minute silence between the Last Post and Reveille played by Geordie Thomson was punctuated by the birds singing and the drone of two planes flying overhead.

Deputy Mayor Cllr Lee Hitchings gave the closing address saying: “Our lives seem challenging at present and those we remember today also lived through very challenging times of their own. Some left for war not to return for years, some not returning at all. Those we remember overcame the privations forced upon them in their time and we should, and will, overcome our challenges of today with the same spirit of determination and unity. We will meet again.”

Piper Lyndon Wall leads the parade down Sheep Market Hill

Piper Lyndon Wall played Flowers of the Forest, and following the service, led the participants down Sheep Market Hill and along East Street to the Market Place, where RBL branch chairman Terry Clarkson and Town Freeman Michael Le Bas laid wreaths at the memorial to Jack Counter VC, and the Mayor and Gyan Tamang, President of Blandford Royal British Legion branch, placed wreaths on the Town Hall war memorial.

Wreaths were also laid by Lt Col Dyer on behalf of the Royal Corps of Signals (the Regiment has the Freedom of the Town) and by Garrison Sergeant Major, WO1 Reddy, on behalf of the Officers, other ranks and families of Blandford Garrison.
Other wreath layers were invited to lay throughout the week instead of during the outdoor service, and local schools laid crosses in the Field of Remembrance, watched over by a Lone Soldier, within the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul.

Acts of Remembrance were held on Remembrance Sunday at various village war memorial across the district, and in Shillingstone residents clubbed together to purchase a Lone Soldier to stand by the memorial in recognition of the village being declared the Bravest Village in World War One due to the high number of casualties. It was awarded by the War Office a commemorative German Field Gun and Carriage which was melted down when the metal was needed in World War Two.

The Rev Karen Wilson leads the service in the Woodhouse Gardens

The Lone Soldier stands over the Field of Remembrance in the Blandford churchyard

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