BUMPER BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND OF GLORIOUS EVENTS

FRIDAY, MAY 8 - Bank Holiday

A service of thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey to be attended by hundreds of veterans and representatives of the

Second World War generation.

Buglers will sound the Last Post & Reveille on the highest points of each country in the UK – Ben Nevis; Scafell Pike in England; Snowdon in Wales; and Slieve Donard in Northern Ireland – as well as every city. Also to be played at five of our farthest-flung locations – Land’s End, Cornwall; Lowestoft, Suffolk; St David’s, Pembrokeshire; Unst in Shetland; Enniskillen Castle in Co Fermanagh; and Tan Hill Inn in Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Exactly 75 years after Churchill declared the war in Europe over, an extract of his speech (see left) will be broadcast in villages and town centres.

Thousands of pipers around the world will play Battle’s O’er, a traditional bagpipe air, marking the end of battle. As well as on the UK’s four highest peaks, pipers will play in Cape Town and in Moscow’s Red Square. Another will play on the bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand in tribute to those who were killed in South East Asia, and others will play at the sites of concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Dachau.

In pubs and historic sites across the country, people are urged to raise a glass for The Nation’s Toast to the heroes of the war, saying: ‘To those who gave so much, we thank you.’

Afterwards, veterans and those who contributed to the war effort take part in a procession down The Mall, ending with a flypast by the RAF’s

Red Arrows and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which includes Spitfires and a Lancaster bomber.

Town criers will call the Cry For Peace Around

The World to ‘remember men and women, old and young, who died to make us free’. If no crier is at hand, dignitaries, pub landlords or community leaders are encouraged to read it out.

Bells will ring out in cathedrals, churches and other locations in a celebration of peace.

Soprano Katherine Jenkins, below, to host an evening of patriotic celebration at the Royal Albert Hall, featuring the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and Military Wives Choirs. To be broadcast in 400 cinemas.

SATURDAY, MAY 9

Parties and celebrations held in pubs, clubs, hotels, town and village halls and on village greens.

SUNDAY, MAY 10

Church services around the UK, including the reading of the Tribute To The Millions and Last Post.