A RECORD number of people attended Oswestry’s Remembrance Day service and parade on Sunday.

People filled Church Street outside the newly restored War Memorial Gates to pay their respects to the those who lost their lives in the both world wars and other conflicts since.

This year’s parade, which was organised by the Oswestry branch of the Royal British Legion, gathered on the Bailey Head before being led by the Porthywaen Silver Band to the Memorial Gates which Oswestry Town Council has had restored to mark 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War. 

Following a rededication of the gates by Reverend Simon Thorburn of St Oswald’s Parish Church, the gathering then attended a service at the parish church.

Mayor of Oswestry, Councillor John Gareth Jones, commented: “Without doubt this was the largest Remembrance parade in many years in Oswestry. I would like to thank everyone who supported the event. I feel Oswestry presented a ceremony that was respectful to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and the rededication of our war memorial will preserve the memory of their service for many years to come.”

There were similar scenes across the region as towns and villages gathered for the two minutes silence, mirroring commemorations held at the Cenotaph in London.

In Ellesmere, where a Poppy Concert organised by the Ellesmere and District branch of the RBL had taken place on Friday evening, civic leaders and residents parade to St Mary’s Parish Church for a service, while in Chirk members of the town council attended a service at St Mary’s Parish Church before going to the war memorial to hear the names of all those from the town who died in the First and Second World Wars.

And in Llanfyllin, where a First World War exhibition had taken place at St Myllin’s Church, councillors and residents joined for the annual Remembrance Sunday wreath-laying event on the town square before a service at the church.