Hundreds of people turned out to pay their respects at services of remembrance held to honour those who lost their lives in conflict.

Parades were held in Battersea and Putney before churches across the borough joined together to remember those who have fallen in conflicts during the past 100 years.

Services were then held at Battersea Park and Wandsworth town hall on Monday morning, Armistice Day itself, which this year marked the 95th anniversary of the moment the guns fell silent at the end of World War I.

Mayor of Wandsworth Councillor Angela Graham and council leader Ravi Govindia laid wreaths at the Battersea Park ceremony, which was held near the park’s war memorial.

Bugler Jonathan Spencer sounded Last Post and Reveille and a piper from the London Irish Rifles played a lament while the wreaths were laid.

The memorial itself was created by renowned war artist and sculptor Eric Kennington, who served as a private in the 13th London Regiment in Flanders and France before being wounded and sent home in June 1915.

The town hall service was held in the Wandsworth High Street garden, where three stone memorial tablets commemorate the service and sacrifices made by men and women who have served in the borough’s volunteer armed forces since 1914.

A pupil from St Cecilia’s Church of England Secondary School in Southfields, which specialises in music, played Last Post and Reveille.

A tablet was first laid in the garden in 1965 to honour the memory of men of the 13th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment – the Wandsworth Pals battalion – who answered the mayor of Wandsworth’s call to arms in 1915.

Two others were added in 2009 to honour those who have served in 16 locally-based Territorial Army units since the onset of the First World War.

 

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