Remembrance Sunday 2009

the people of St Nicolas marked Remembrance Sunday with a meaningful and moving service.

The worship was a reminder to us to say thank you to all those who died, who gave service and made sacrifices: during both world wars, and in more recent conflicts around the world.

A sensitive mixture of traditional and contemporary elements ensured that all generations present engaged and confronted the issues of war and of peace.

Prayers of remembrance and for peace were said.

Before the service began, organist Peter Durant played beautifully. As he says, ‘Remembrance Sunday calls for special music. The first piece ‘Lento’ by Frank Bridge, is a bleak elegy in a minor key; the second ‘Andantino’ by Harold Darke is a gentler, pastoral piece, offering hope’.

At 11am a minutes silence was observed and Ann Stone played the Last Post and the Reveille either side of the silence.

During the service, artist Deborah Last painted this picture. During the service people, young and old, were invited to place their poppies into the painting as an act of prayer. As they did this cellist, Katy Whittle, played JS Bach’s Prelude from his Cello Suite in C Minor. It was a very profound moment.

Please join us in our prayers of remembrance and peace:

We commit ourselves to work in penitence and faith
for reconciliation between the nations,
that all people may, together,
live in freedom, justice and peace.
We pray for all who in bereavement, disability and pain
continue to suffer the consequences of fighting and terror.
We remember with thanksgiving and sorrow
those whose lives, in world wars and conflicts past and present, have been given and taken away.
Amen