The British High Commission Singapore, in partnership with the Singapore Armed Forces Veterans’ League (SAFVL), held a virtual service to mark Remembrance Sunday today (8 November 2020).
The ceremony, broadcast at 10.40am (Singapore time) on the High Commission’s UK in Singapore Facebook page, paid tribute to all who had laid down their lives so that the generations after them could live in peace.
In the UK, Remembrance Sunday is held on the Sunday nearest to Remembrance Day on 11 November; the date marks the official end of the First World War in 1918.
As part of the pre-recorded service, senior representatives from the British High Commission Singapore, the Singapore Armed Forces and its Veterans’ League, and UK defence forces laid poppy wreaths at the Singapore Memorial in the Kranji War Cemetery.
The wreath laying was accompanied by a lamentation delivered remotely by bagpipers from the Gurkha Contingent Singapore Police Force.
At 11am, online viewers observed a two-minute silence, in memory of the fallen.
Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Defence Advisers from various nations later joined remotely in pledging ‘We Will Remember Them’, in response to a reading of an excerpt from Robert Laurence Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’.
A joint choir made up of students from Dover Court International, Dulwich College Singapore, Marlborough College Malaysia and Tanglin Trust School performed the hymns ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘I Vow To Thee My Country’.
In the segment ‘Reflections from Singapore Youth’, members of the Singapore National Cadet Corps Command Band – Swiss Cottage Secondary School shared their personal thoughts on peace and conflict. A bugler from the Singapore National Cadet Corps Command Band also sounded the Last Post and the Reveille.
British High Commissioner to Singapore, Her Excellency Kara Owen, said in her speech:
Normally, we mark Remembrance Sunday together, at a morning service at Kranji War Cemetery. We can’t do so in-person this year. We have to meet virtually instead. But our method of meeting does not dilute our purpose, nor our sincerity.
Today, we are paying our respects to the fallen and in doing so, we are living out our promise to remember the sacrifices of those – from all nations – who fought and died. A promise to remember their service and re-affirm the values that they fought to preserve.
And to acknowledge both the courage of those who served their country and our responsibility to work for the peace they fought so hard to achieve.
