On Friday 1st July, one hundred years from the start of the bloodiest battle of the First World War, the day a staggering 19,200 British soldiers were killed, King’s Lynn held a moving service of remembrance.
The 6.60pm service was held at the towns All Saints Church. Led by its Rector, Fr Adrian Ling, it included stories of four of King’s Lynn’s fallen from the battle of the Somme and also WWI poetry. The Act of commitment was read by representatives of the town’s Sea and Air Cadets.
The congregation, which included the Borough Mayor Councillor David Whitby and RAF Marham’s Base Commander, Group Captain Rich Davies ADC, then made its way, led by British Legion standards to the nearby Memorial Gardens.
There, following a further act of remembrance and wreath laying at the towns war memorial, the light was taken by a World War One ‘Tommy’, escorted by a Sea Cadet from Lynn’s TS Vancouver and an Air Cadet from 42F (King’s Lynn) Squadron, to the historic lantern tower, all that is left, of the Greyfriars Friary. From there it will shine out for 141 days until November, the length of a battle that gained so little but claimed so much.