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First World War sacrifices remembered during poignant trip




Bryan Mills and Danny Kidd at the Menin Road as they prepare to march to the Menin Gate for the One Hundred Days offensive ceremony (3565433)
Bryan Mills and Danny Kidd at the Menin Road as they prepare to march to the Menin Gate for the One Hundred Days offensive ceremony (3565433)

A duo from the Haverhill, Thurlow & District Royal British Legion took part in two evocative events that commemorated hugely significant moments in First World War history.

Chairman Bryan Mills and assistant standard bearer Danny Kidd represented the branch at last week’s Great Pilgrimage 90 Parade and One Hundred Days Ceremony.

The pilgrimage honoured the events of 1928, when the British Legion (as it was then known) organised for veterans and war widows to visit the battlefields of the Somme and Ypres before marching to the Menin Gate in Ypres on August 8.

The wreaths laid by RBL representatives at the Menin Gate (3657490)
The wreaths laid by RBL representatives at the Menin Gate (3657490)

Exactly 90 years later, Bryan and Danny were among thousands of Legion representatives who recreated the pilgrimage and visited the same battlefields and, on August 8, paraded their branch standard and a laid a wreath along the same route to the Menin Gate for the One Hundred Days ceremony, which commemorated the start of the series of offensives that triggered the end of the war, known as the Hundred Days Offensive.

Bryan said: “There were 1.400 wreath layers and 1,400 standard bearers. That was the biggest event that the Royal British Legion has done for years. There were 10,000 soldiers and relatives of the fallen.”