Last weekend saw the anniversary of 100 years since the end of the First World War and across the UK, the nation joined together with a series of events to recognise the sacrifices made by our Armed Forces past and present.
As your Member of Parliament, I am always honoured to be invited to a number of Remembrance services in Staffordshire Moorlands to pay respects on behalf of local residents to those who died in the two World Wars and other conflicts. As Secretary of State, I was attending services in Northern Ireland and am grateful to Margaret Heath and Judy Scott Moncrieff who laid wreaths on my behalf this year at the Biddulph Cenotaph and at the Nicholson War Memorial in Leek.
Staffordshire Moorlands always pays such fitting tributes to the men and women who gave their lives defending our freedom and to celebrate the centenary Staffordshire Moorlands joined the nation’s “Battle’s Over” events with church bells ringing out and Town Crier, Bill Lomas’s “Cry for Peace Around the World” outside the Nicholson War Memorial. It was lovely to see so many initiatives such as the illumination of the Nicholson War Memorial and the new commemorative bench at Wetley Rocks, purchased jointly by Cheddleton Parish Council and the “Cautionary Lands Trust” in remembrance of the fallen.
Butterton however, held a very special Remembrance service. Not only is it one of the famous “thankful villages” where all of the 15 men who fought in the First World War returned alive but it is a “doubly thankful village” as the 13 men who fought in the Second World War also survived the War.
So as your MP and on behalf of local residents I would like to join The Royal British Legion in saying Thank You to all who served, sacrificed and changed our world.