A Remembrance Day ceremony was held at Leicester College on Friday 9 November 2018, students and staff gathered together to honour those who have lost their lives in service. Special guests Deputy Lieut. Of County, MP Liz Kendall and The Right Worshipful Ross Grant, Lord Mayor of Leicester was also in attendance.

Ceremonies were held at the Abbey Park campus and Freemen’s Park campus, at 11am Leicester College Chaplin and the Student Union were also at each campus.

Ian Everitt, Programme Area Manager of Childcare, Health, Humanities and Sciences organises the ceremony every year. He said:

“I was brought up in a service family and born on a bomber station, RAF Finningley where my father was stationed. My mother served as a Royal Navy Nurse. Both grandfathers served in the Army in the Second World War. My great-grandfather served in the First World War and saw action on the Western Front where he performed an act of bravery of enough significance to be mentioned in dispatches. It is important to me that those who have served the country and lost their lives in the process are shown the proper respect and thought about, even if it is just once at this time of year.”

Across the two campuses, a two-minute silence was held and the laying of the wreath by the College staff, students, nurseries as well as the special guests.

The Lord Mayor of Leicester shared how lucky he feels to be able to interact with people from many different backgrounds, cultures and faiths and proudly laid a wreath as a representative of a multi-faith, multi-cultural community to remember those whose lives were tragically cut short.

To mark that it is the centenary of the end of the First World War engineering students created a silhouette of a soldier and a display of metal poppies at the Freemen’s Park campus.

A beautiful gesture of falling poppy petals rained down in the Abbey Park campus atrium as the campus fell silent thinking of those who have passed on as the Uniform Public Services students lead the two-minute silence.