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Porthywaen Silver Band Pays Tribute To Last Hero

Date: 30/07/2009
Category: General
Posted by: rsharp
Untitled document Porthywaen Silver Band recently came back from Belgium after a short tour of Ypres, Gent and De Haan. For three consecutive nights the band played at the Menin Gate Memorial, a site commemorating those soldiers lost in the First World War in the Ypres Salient.

Untitled document On the second day of the tour, the band heard the sad news that the last surviving British World War One Veteran, Harry Patch, had passed away. As part of the ceremony that takes place at the Menin Gate, the Last Post Association and Porthywaen Silver Band paid tribute to the last living link to the great war.

‘It is a humbling experience to play at the Menin Gate Memorial,’ says Band Chairman Gareth Johnson. ‘We feel extremely honoured to have been a part of a tradition stretching back over 80 years. We were fortunate that we were able to play a small tribute to Harry Patch while we were there after hearing of his passing.’ Local officials of the Last post Association said that Harry Patch had made a number of trips to the Menin Gate Memorial in the past and read a dedication to ‘Britain’s Last Tommy’.

The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing was completed in 1927 and displays the names of 54,896 soldiers who died during World War I and have no known grave. Because the number of missing dead from the Ypres Salient exceeds the number of spaces available at the Menin Gate Memorial, a further memorial was built at Tyne Cot Cemetary with the names of 34,984 soldiers.