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Remembrance Services and parades are set to take place throughout Medway, Gravesend and Dartford on Thursday and Sunday.
Armistice Day events on Thursday November 11 include a Remembrance Service at Rochester Cathedral at 10.20am, while wreaths will be laid at Victoria Gardens, in Fort Pitt Hill, Chatham, at 10.45am.
Remembrance Sunday on November 14 will bring people together to remember those who died in the two World Wars and later conflicts, with an official wreath laying event at the Great Lines park in Gillingham.
In Gillingham, participants will assemble top at the war memorial at 9.45am before a parade along the High Street, ending with a service at St Mark’s Church at 10.45am.
Remembrance Sunday parades will also take place in Chatham with a parade down Chatham High Street and a service led by Rev Martyn Saunders of St Johns Church, and music being provided by the Salvation Army.
Rev Saunders said this year marked 100 years since the war memorial was unveiled on Victoria Gardens, and that the event would focus on that milestone.
In 1921 the then mayor of Chatham, Alderman Whyman, introduced proceedings by saying: “The cross had been set up not only as a memorial to those who had made the supreme sacrifice, but as an inspiration to future generations. That day would stand forth in all future diaries as a Day of Remembrance. They should not only stand before the memorial and praise those who were lost, but they should try and capture their heroism and apply it to the world around them”
And Rev Saunders added: “We’ll be thinking about how the cross might inspire us today (since we are amongst those future generations). What is it about the heroism of those who made the supreme sacrifice that can be applied to the world around us today?”
In Rochester there will also be a parade at 10.45am, before a service at Rochester Cathedral and War Memorial.
St Margaret’s church in Rainham will be holding an act of remembrance at 10.30am at Rainham’s War Memorial, where hymns will be led by the Kent Police Band. The event will also be live-streamed to the church’s Facebook Page and website.
In Gravesend an Armistice Day service on Thursday November 11 will be held on the Community Square outside the Civic Centre in Gravesend at 11am, before an Annual Service of Remembrance Denton War Memorial at 12.50pm.
Further services will take place at Bawley Bay, St Andrew’s Art Centre, at 12.25pm, and at Meopham War Memorial on Meopham Green at 3pm.
In Dartford, a Remembrance Sunday Service will go ahead on Sunday November 14, taking place at the War Memorial in Central Park, Dartford at 10.40am.
Following the end of the service there will be a march past by veterans, uniformed and youth organisations, although due to the ongoing public realm improvements in the High Street, the route of the march has changed since previous years
Participants will assemble in the Acacia Mansion car park and will march to Market Street, before turning into Central Park by Dartford Museum, past the War Memorial and into Central Park before dispersing at the Band Stand.
Anyone wishing to attend should note that the High Street and Market Street will be closed to traffic from 10.15am on the 14th to allow the service and parade to take place and roads will not re-open until the event has concluded at around midday.
Meanwhile Remembrance events have already taken place around North Kent this month.
Hundreds of poppies were laid at the Cobham War Memorial to honour veterans who have lost their lives in wars past and present.
Each was hand knitted by the ladies in the college behind the church and planted on the cross at the green by children from Cobham Primary School last Thursday.
More than 800 of the crochet creations were fashioned and sold at local pubs and shops at a cost of £2 each with all proceeds going towards the Royal British Legion.
Local resident Sacha Dyer, of Lodge Lane, helped organise the poppy appeal after driving past the monument and noticing its neglect.
The 52-year-old said: “It went really well. There are about 320 planted up there so it is looking quite good and they are still selling them in the shops and the pubs.
“A lot of people took them home they liked them so much.”
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