This morning, the children of KS2 walked down to the Parish Church to pay tribute to the three servicemen buried in the churchyard.
The children in Year 6 introduced the activity by reminding us about the First World War and the importance of remembering those that left their families and friends to go and fight on the battlefields of France and Belgium. Many of them were never to return again and are buried near to where they fell overseas. However, there are also over 800 servicemen buried in churchyards in Suffolk: these are the servicemen who came back to Britain but who later died of their wounds.
We then visited the three graves of Private James Rumsby, Private Herbert Vincent and Deckhand John White and learnt more about their lives. Private Rumsby grew up in the Old Workhouse on Chediston Street and joined the Gloucestershire Regiment, whose soldiers were famed for their courage; Herbert Vincent had been a furniture maker and dealer based in the White House on Laxfield Road (a house that his father had built); and John White had been a farm labourer and had married Mary Carter, the daughter of the village postman in 1915.
The children then gathered together again for an Act of Remembrance: Year 6 children read a short prayer and the Ode of Remembrance before listening to the Last Post and sharing a minute’s silence, which the children observed perfectly.
