May ‘honoured’ to attend First World War event

Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will be “honoured” to join thousands of descendants of soldiers who fought at Passchendaele to commemorate the centenary of the First World War battle in Belgium on 31 July.

Mrs May will break off from her three-week summer holiday to join the Prince of Wales anddukeandduchessofcambridge in paying their respects to those who fell in the Third Battle of Ypres, which began on 31 July, 1917 and lasted until November that year.

The commemorations will be preceded on the night before by the traditional Last Post ceremony, which has taken place every evening at the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres since 1928.

As part of the ceremony, representatives of combatant nations will lay wreaths under the Gate.

Descendants of those who fought in the battle were invited earlier this year to enter a ballot for 4,000 tickets to attend the commemoration event at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Tyne Cot Cemetery, where 11,961 men are buried.