Two Cobham schoolchildren were among those who travelled to Belgium to remember the fallen.

Seven pupils from Surrey schools, including Ketan Curtis from Yehudi Menuhin School, and Rhys Clements from Reeds School, travelled to Brussels to take part in a special last post ceremony under the Menin Gate in Ypres.

More than 60 pupils from across the country travelled to Belgium to collect sacred soil from the battlefields of Flanders to be brought back to the UK as part of the Flanders Fields memorial garden project.

The last post ceremony took place on Armistice Day, Monday, November 11, at the Menin Gate, a war memorial dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the city.

Alongside the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, Prince Laurent from Belgium and other dignitaries from the UK and Belgium, children carried sandbags of sacred soil to the memorial.

The band of the Coldstream Guards, soldiers and officers of the seven regiments of the British Guards, and an entire gun crew of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, also took part in the ceremony.

Geert De Proost, representative to the UK of the government of Flanders, said: “The importance of these WWI memorial projects and their role in reminding people around the world of the destruction and loss of life that result from wars is invaluable.

“We hope that by Eurostar carrying these British school children to Belgium to be part of the special remembrance ceremony, we will help more young people to understand the consequences of war.”

The soil of Flanders Fields will be handed to the Royal Navy on November 30 and will be incorporated in to the Flanders Fields memorial garden before the official inauguration in the autumn of 2014.