Annual remembrance service held at Sandham Memorial Chapel

Around 50 people gathered at Burghclere’s Sandham Memorial Chapel for its annual remembrance service to honour those who have lost their lives in times of war.

The chapel is famous for containing Stanley Spencer’s paintings which depict what life was like for soldiers on the Macedonian Salonika front in the First World War.

On Armistice Day morning, Padre Mark Christian led the service, a veteran who served around the world and was the senior chaplain in Afghanistan 10 years ago.

In his sermon, in which he reflected on his own relationship with the chapel, he said: “[The chapel] is all about the communion of soldiers as they gather together, support each other, play, and of course, eat. It is a place of happiness.

“But as we gather today we remember that that’s not what conflict is all about.”

Wreaths were laid at the door of the chapel by Claire Heatherington from the National Trust, Alan Wakefield from the Salonika Association, Brigadier David Innes of the 7/8 Battalions Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and Fiona Innes from the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

Shaftesbury resident Rosemary Newton travelled to the chapel to take part in the service as her grandfather Cecil Deadman had served on the Salonika front.

She was excited to see the chapel as she hadn’t before, and she made the trip because of how close she was to her grandfather.

“He meant a lot to me,” she said.