Remembrance Sunday fell this year, most appropriately, on the eleventh day of November commemorated by the St Denis congregation at the traditional Service of Remembrance. The service was conducted by the Reverend Beth Smith who recalled in her address memories of service life as an Army wife. She described this solemn occasion as a time when England mourns those whose lives were lost in the service of the country and how this annual service of Remembrance maintains the noble qualities of respect, duty and pride in our country. The act of remembrance took place in bleak sunshine at the village centre with the congregation of some three dozen parishioners encircling the war memorial. The Roll of Honour was read out by ex Army officer Dick Moss. This records the fourteen names of the men of our parish who gave their lives in the Great War and a single name for the Second World War. Wreaths were laid by parish councillor Mark Barnett on behalf of the Pailton Ex-Servicemen’s Club and by county councillor Phillip Morris-Jones on behalf of the community. The War Memorial provided a special place for a floral tribute placed year after year by a loving sister who never forgets her brother who made the supreme sacrifice.
Villagers are slowly coming to terms with their village post office and shop now closed as a consequence of a knife-point robbery. Alongside the deep sympathy for the proprietors, Sharon and John Fitzsimons, lingers a hope that it might someday be revived as a vital community institution of particular value to the elderly and those without their own transport.
Joanna Morris-Jones