Poppy petals being released at the Menin Gate on Remembrance Day 2010
Chorley Pals Memorial Trustee and WW1 historian & author, Steve Williams, was at the Menin Gate at Ypres in Belgium on Remembrance Day, the 11th November.
Over a thousand people fell silent for two minutes at 11.00 a.m. to mark the 92nd anniversary of the Armistice; they then witnessed a host of red poppies being released from the roof of the Gate onto the crowd below.
Joining him the ceremony were 48 others on a short coach trip from Lancashire to the First World War memorial and nearby Ypres Salient battlefield. They included Peter Storry from the Chorley & District Ex-Services Association and two students from St. Michael’s High School in the town, Jack and George Ingham who live in Withnell.
Despite the rain, they took time to locate Chorley soldiers amongst the 54,000 names on the Gate and then visited Tyne Cot Cemetery at Passchendaele where a further 35,000 names of men with no known grave on the battlefield are recorded, many from Lancashire.
