Joint Ceremony In The High Street And A Service At Jacobs Well To Mark Armistice Day

Published on: 11 Nov, 2015
Updated on: 11 Nov, 2015

In a joint ceremony in Guildford High Street today (November 11) a VC hero from 1915 was honoured before a two-minute silence was observed at 11am, armistice hour.

Waiting to observe the two-minute silence in the High Street.

The Mayor of Guildford, Nikki Nelson-Smith, unveiled a plaque in Tunsgate Arch to commemorate Lt Alfred Victor Smith of the East Lancashire Regiment who was born in Guildford in 1891 and lived as a boy in Sandfield Terrace.

A plaque was unveiled to the memory of Lt Albert Victor Smith VC who was born in Guildford.

His family moved to St Albans and then Burnley, and when he left school he joined the Blackpool Police, but volunteered for the army at the outbreak of the Great War.

Alfred Victor Smith was commissioned into the East Lancashire Regiment and fought in Gallipoli.

He was awsarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for selflessness and bravery at Cape Helles on December 23, 1915, dying in an explosion to save others. Lt Smith was also awarded the French Croix de Guerre.

Present at today’s unveiling were family descendants and soldiers from the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment into which the East Lancashire Regiment has been amalgamated.

Bugler plays at the Armistic Day service in Guildford High Street.

The rector of Holy Trinity and St Mary’s churches, the Revd Robert Cotton, welcomed those who had gathered in the High Street.

The exortation was read by Capt Tom Reynolds, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.

At Jacobs Well an Armistic Day service took place at the Lilly Bell II memorial. It commemorates four American airmen who died when their aircraft crashed in a field off Clay Lane in 1944.

About 40 people attended the Armistice Day service at Jacobs Well.

The service was organised by Worplesadon Parish Council and was led by its chairman, Dr Paul Cragg.

About 40 people attended with piper and local resident Kenneth Thomson playing two laments: The Mist Covered Mountains and Flowers Of The Forest.

Wreath laying at the Lilly Bell II memorial in Jacobs Well.

Wreaths were laid on behalf of the parish council and Jacobs Well Residents’ Association and a two-minute silence was observed that began perfectly on time at 11am, as in the distance the maroon could be heard that had been sounded in Guildford town centre.

In his address Dr Cragg said: “Thousands and indeed millions have died in numerous conflicts, from the horrors of World War One and World War Two, Korea, Vietnam and more recently Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. We cannot hold their hands in concsoilation, but we can remember them.”

The chairman of Worplesdon Parish Council, Dr Paul Cragg.

Afterwards, asked what remembrance means to him, he said: “I have a real interest in my wife’s father, Count Tuszynski, who was Polish and who flew with the RAF in the Second World War. He had escaped from northern Poland where his family had owned a large estate, but lost everything. He then made his way to the UK via Spain.

“As a pilot he had a number of scores to his name and was wounded when he was shot in the leg. But he was one of the lucky ones who survived the war and died in 1958.”

Worplesdon parish councillor Derek Slaymaker.

Derek Slaymaker is a Worplesdon parish councillor and has been ‘in unifrom’ most of his life – with the ambulance service and the British Red Cross. He said: “We always remember each year and I have laid wreaths on behalf of the Red Cross at the Castle Grounds in Guildford.”

He did his National Service in the early 1950s serving with the RAF and was based at Andover, Bedford and Uxbridge in the UK, and also in Egypt.

Piper and Jacobs Well resident Kenneth Thomson.

Piper Kenneth Thomson and his wife Margaret focus on family members on days when we remember those who served and died in times of conflict. Both their fathers saw action in the Second World War. Kenneth’s father was in the Middle East and Margaret’s father landed in France on D-Day+3.

However, one of Margaret’s grandfathers, who served in the First World War, received the Croix de Guerre from the French in 1916. He died in 1920, possibly of illness sustained during the years he was on active service.

Kenneth’s grandfather served with the Black Watch during the First World War and was gassed. He lived until 1925, almost certainly dying of his injuries, but by that time, it was, of course, too late for him to be recorded on any war memorials.

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