For the first time in the College’s history, due to the second COVID-19 lockdown in England, our Remembrance Sunday service and parade were cancelled this year. Instead, a pre-recorded Service of Remembrance was created by the Chaplain for the whole school community and shown on Remembrance Day, Wednesday 11 November 2020. This was followed by an Upper Sixth-only parade organised by RSM Colin Hearn and supported by the school’s Marching Band and Bandmaster Mr Andrew Thornhill.

In his opening words the Chaplain, The Reverend Neil Jeffers, emphasised the fact that these times were not normal and that the video had been created to remember the sacrifice of those who have gone before us. The guest preacher was Captain David Meryon, Royal Engineers, who has served in the Middle East and latterly been involved in a variety of counter-terrorism operations in Europe. 

The service included Douglas Guest's famous anthem 'For the Fallen', Henry Purcell’s anthem ‘Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts’, and Director of Music Mr Chris McDade’s own arrangement of ‘God by in my Head’ sung by the Sixth Form Chamber Choir. Chief Cadet Captain of the College (Head Boy) Matthew Stanley read the lesson from John’s Gospel. 

Upper Sixth pupils Hamish Bamforth (Chief Cadet Captain of Hesperus), Daniel McMeekin (Hesperus), Rosalind Harper (St George) and Lara Thomas (Chief Cadet Captain of Illawarra) read the names of the 178 Old Pangbournians who fell in war. Old Pangbournian Lucy Perring played the Last Post and RSM Colin Hearn read Binyon’s famous words ‘They shall not grow old as we grow old’.

The pre-recorded service was watched by all the school in their tutor groups. The Upper Sixth watched the start of the service in the Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel and then at 10:50, with members of the Marching Band, took part in a parade and Act of Remembrance led by the Chaplain outside on the parade ground, while the rest of the College continued to watch the service virtually (which also included a pre-recorded Act of Remembrance).

Wreaths representing the school, Governors, and Old Pangbournians were laid at the base of the College’s mainmast by the Headmaster, Mr Thomas Garnier, and the two Chief Cadet Captains of College (Heads of School), Matthew Stanley and Elise Szala respectively. All members of the on-site school community, including support staff, stopped what they were doing to mark this corporate time of reflection and remembrance.