EK will pay tribute to the fallen this Sunday

Nov 7 2012 by Lynda Nicol, East Kilbride News

The people of East Kilbride and district will come together this ­Sunday to pay tribute to the war dead.

This year’s Remembrance Day commemorations will be particularly poignant as the day falls on the 11th day of the 11th month – the anniversary of the end of World War I.

Hundreds are expected to turn out at the town’s War Memorial in Graham Avenue for the special service and wreath laying ceremony.

The Services’ organisations and local uniformed youth organisations will gather at the Royal British Legion Social Club in Bosfield Place in The Village at 10.30am in preparation for their march to the War Memorial.

The service will be led by the Reverend Anne Paton, minister of East Kilbride Old Parish Church and Father Owen Ness, parish priest at St Bride’s Church.

Two minutes’ silence in tribute to the fallen will be marked at 11am followed by the wreath-laying, with the first wreath, on behalf of the people of East Kilbride, laid by South Lanarkshire Councillor Alice Marie Mitchell.

Wreaths will also be laid by representatives of the Services and other organisations and by a number of local dignitaries, including MP Michael McCann.

Afterwards, the parade, led by East Kilbride Pipe Band, will then make its way to East Kilbride Old Parish Church for the Service of Remembrance.

Elsewhere in the town’s and villages of the area, similar services will take place, including at Strathaven, where the Royal British Legion are inviting local folk to join them at Strathaven Cemetery shortly before 11am to mark the two minutes’ silence and for their own wreath-laying ceremony.

Following the short service they will parade to Avendale Old Parish Church for the town’s official Remembrance Day Service.

During this service, the war memorial plaque, which previously hung in Strathaven West Church, will be rededicated.

Representatives of the East Kilbride branch of the Royal British Legion will visit East Kilbride Cemetery to pay tribute to the area’s war dead on Saturday, November 10.

Afterwards, they will head to Philipshill Cemetery, where they will lay a wreath at 11am on the grave of Corporal John Harrison, the 29-year-old soldier from Westwood who was killed in September 2009 while on an Afghanistan hostage rescue mission.