Remembrance Service

This year’s Remembrance Service offered pupils in Years 3-8 a time to pause, to reflect and to give thanks to those who sacrificed their lives for us. Many thanks to Reverend Jonathan Morris for leading the service, to our Senior Choir and Orchestra for their poignant performances (Mr Shortman’s musical arrangement of Gandhi’s ‘I Offer You Peace’ was a particular highlight) and to our senior pupils for their readings.

We were especially honoured to welcome Perrott parent, Alex MacEwen, who served with distinction as a Captain in the Household Cavalry Regiment, to give this morning’s Address. Alex spoke about the act of remembrance and how it often leads him to question the causes of conflict and war, and to think about how we might try to avoid it so that more lives are not lost in the name of peace. He urged the children to be kind, for the world would be more peaceful if each of us was kind; to be inclusive and to listen to the feelings of others; to be there to help friends, family and the wider community; and to talk, because it’s always better to talk than be silent. He told the children about the Christmas Truce in 1914, when both British and German soldiers came together for a game of football on no-man’s-land – the ultimate proof that being kind, inclusive and talking to each other can have a far greater reward than fighting.

Alex ended his address by encouraging each of the children to be kind to someone today, to play with someone they don’t usually play with and to recognise the powerful effect their simple act of kindness can have on others. This is the change each of us can make in the world, he said, and this is how we can honour the fallen. Thank you, Alex. We will remember them.