IT WAS a beautiful summer evening when hundreds of villagers came out to witness the rededication of a war memorial. The rededication took place at St. Barnabas Church in Swanmore, on Sunday, August 4, and marked the end of a year of work to restore the memorial in the churchyard.
The work was spearheaded by Community Safety Officer Gary McCulloch. He explained: “About a year ago, somebody said ‘It’s looking a bit tatty’, and I approached Vicar Nick (Whitehead) who led the service tonight, and his team cut back the hedge which showed that the fence was broken and rotted away. “So, I got a blacksmith in, he said it was a lot of money, so we raised £2,500 which was enough for the fabricating works and other things as well, and then we set about removing the old grass base, putting in a shingle covering so it matches the rest of the churchyard.
We’ve also spoken with Bishop Waltham’s Men’s Shed and they will be making us troughs for the crosses at Remembrance. “And that’s it. It was in three stages, we raised the money, we did the work and then tonight the service was the whole village – it wasn’t just the vicar it was all three services, army, navy and air force.
It was the older generation, as well as the younger one.” The event consisted of a service held inside the church, where members of the community were invited to join in with prayers and hymns, with members of the armed forces branches reading poems, with the role of honour being read by squa.