The “Great Pilgrimage 90” (GP 90), the biggest Royal British Legion membership event for a generation, is scheduled to take place at Ypres in 10 days’ time, on 8th August 2018 at the Menin Gate. This ceremony commemorates The Great Pilgrimage made in 1928 (10 years after the end of WW1) and to commemorate the centenary of the final silence of the guns on the Western Front in 1918.

Representatives from a total of 1147 Branches, Groups and Counties in UK will be participating. This includes 36 Branches from Essex County. One representative will carry the Branch, Group or County Standard while the other will carry a Wreath containing a Remembrance message from their community or local school.

These Remembrance Wreaths will be collected as the parade marches to the Menin Gate and will subsequently be built into a display within the Commonwealth War Graves Commission grounds that surround the memorial.

*The Menin Gate Ypres

*Debden Branch Standard Bearer, Stewart Luck.

There will be a national commemorative service event and wreath-laying at the Menin Gate by VIPs. This is being organised by the “Last Post Association”, the body founded in 1928 that is responsible for the Last Post Ceremony carried out daily at the Memorial.

All those attending will take part in a two-day programme of visits to various battlefield memorial sites, trenches and cemeteries as well as parading at the Menin Gate on 8th August.

Debden Branch RBL will be represented by Stewart Luck, who will be the Standard Bearer, and John Arkwright, who will carry the Wreath and accompanying message from Debden community and School. As well as Debden Branch parading on 90, Clavering, Dunmow, Takeley and Saffron Walden Branches from “C” Group Essex RBL will also be taking part.

*The Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Ypres.

*GP 90 John Arkwright Debden Branch Wreath Bearer