EHDC Chairman welcomes HRH The Princess Royal
EHDC chairman Cllr Graham Hill was among those to greet HRH The Princess Royal who was a special guest at the annual Canada Day service at St Mary's Church, Bramshott, on Wednesday.
The service is organised by Liphook Junior School to remember the 318 Canadian soldiers and two nurses who lost their lives during the First World War and are buried in Commonwealth War Graves in the churchyard.
Each year children from Year 4 research the short lives of the servicemen and women and place maple leaf flags on their graves.
Cllr Hill, supported by Bramshott and Liphook district councillors, Angela Glass and Bill Mouland, laid a wreath at the churchyard memorial alongside parish council chairman Sally Cameron and Hampshire County Council chairman Mark Cooper.
Cllr Hill said: "I am very honoured to be invited to this very uplifting and memorable event. It has grown into the calendar of Liphook Junior School whose pupils put on an extraordinary show to remember people who died more than a hundred years ago. It is a history lesson that no-one who has ever been to it ever forgets."
Princess Anne read a lesson at the service laid a wreath and later attended an event at the school at which the children related stories of the war and its participants and lustily sang the Canadian national anthem and wartime old favourites to further cement the village's bond with Canada.
Also attending were Hampshire's Lord Lieutenant Nigel Atkinson and the Canadian High Commissioner Ralph Goodale.