Ringwood Ex-Tablers (Region 23) www.ringwood41club.co.uk

A party of 20 Ringwood 41ers and wives have just returned from a magical 5 day coach tour of WW1 battlefields.

This was the second such trip which we have made, last year a party of 25 visited the Normandy Beaches and learnt more about WW2.

The highlight of this year's trip was when our Chairman Graham Hoyle participated in the nightly sounding of the Last Post at the Menin Gate in Ypres. This event was attended by some 1,500 people and Graham contributed by laying a wreath and reading the fourth and best known stanza of Laurence Binyon's poem 'For The Fallen', "At the going down of the sun...".

Tyne Cot Cemetery	The Menin Gate Memorial
Ringwood 41 Club

In addition, one of the men marshalling the event recognised Graham's chain of office and declared that he and 9 of the 12 men who take it in turns to arrange the ceremony were also 41ers.

The ceremony takes place every night of every week and has done since the 1920s, apart from a break during WW2.

This all served to make the trip particularly poignant for Ringwood.