Delay Remembrance service by one hour

I WANT to request that the Royal British Legion (RBL) delay their annual Remembrance Service by one hour on Sunday, November 11, 2018.

The RBL’s service is to remember all servicemen killed in the line of duty to date, so the time it starts is not that significant. November 11, 2018, is the centenary of the Armistice, the cessation of military action in the Great War.

Both my grandfathers fought in the war, and close relatives and friends of theirs were killed during the war. It would be great if relatives of those who fought and died could pay their respects similar to first remembrance commemorations in 1919, when there were no military parades, no flags, no readings and no anthems. The veteran soldiers congregated around the newly erected Cenotaph and stood in silence for two minutes at 11am.

Some 434 men from the Llynfi Valley were killed in World War One and I am asking that the families of these men and others can congregate around the war memorials in Caerau, Maesteg and Pontrhydycyff at 11am on Sunday, November 11, 2018, with no military parades, or flags, so that they can stand in dignified silence to pay respect to their forefathers.

There will be no readings, blessings or signing of national anthems. After the two-minute silence we will leave.

This is a one-off request and doesn’t deflect from the annual poppy appeal, which I urge people to support, because the physical and mental health welfare of ex-service people is dependent on charitable organisations like the Royal British Legion, because successive British governments have taken the cowardly route to defer responsibility. Illtyd ap Dafydd Maesteg