REMEMBRANCE Day events are taking place across Leicester over the coming days as the nation prepares once again to commemorate its fallen servicemen and women.
On Thursday, November 11, shoppers and traders at Leicester Market will pause for a small service from 10.50am, including a bugler and two-minute silence at 11am.
The main Remembrance Day service takes place at the Arch of Remembrance in Victoria Park, on Sunday, November 14. It starts at 10.55am, with two minutes of silence at 11am, marked with the firing of salutes at the beginning and end.
Dignitaries including the Vice Lord-Lieutenant of Leicestershire Colonel Murray Colville, and the Lord Mayor of Leicester Councillor Deepak Bajaj, together with representatives from local emergency services, military units and faith representatives, will take part.
For the first time, the service will also be available to watch via a live stream, along with an order of service, both of which can be access at Leicester City Council’s website here.
Last weekend a newly-installed war memorial was revealed in Thurnby Lodge, commemorating local servicemen and women who have died in military conflicts.
The memorial is the result of work by ward councillors and the wider community to contribute the funding, and it was unveiled in a ceremony involving children from the area, local clergyman the Reverend Paul Savage and bagpiper Tommy Lierd.
Throughout November, Newarke Houses Museum will host “Bolton-Crick: Soundscapes from the Somme,” which uses technology to bring to life the forgotten story of the artist James Reynolds’ great-great grandfathers, who fought as part of the British Expeditionary Force in the trenches on the Somme in 1916.
Their names were Frederick George Bolton, Joseph Bolton and Frederick Albion Crick, and the exhibition blends soldiers’ stories with poems and musical compositions to create a fully 3D stereo sound recording.
The spoken word accounts, poems and quotes are taken from Bolton and Crick's own regiments, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and the Royal Sussex Regiment, as well as from soldiers who fought in the trenches alongside them.
The exhibition runs until November 28.
James Reynolds will also give a free talk exploring the creation of “Bolton-Crick: Soundscapes from the Somme”, and also explore his great-great grandfathers' contribution to the Battle of the Somme – one of the bloodiest conflicts of the First Word War, which cost an estimated
The free talk, which is followed by a question and answer session, takes place on Sunday, November 14, from 2-3pm.
Further details are available here.
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