Some may ask, “What is Decoration Day and why do we celebrate it every year?”

The Royal Canadian Legion branch in Medicine Hat, with whom the Newton Abbot Branch is twinned, conduct a Decoration Day on the first weekend in June each year.

In the ceremony at Medicine Hat, there are some hundred graves of British servicemen who were killed was training in Canada during the Second World War. The Decoration Day ceremony comprised of cleaning the headstones before the day and placing poppies on all except the front two rows. A short service of remembrance is conducted on the Sunday during which Officers of the Royal Canadian Legion, Allied Organisations, and various civil dignitaries, then place poppies on the remaining headstones

 The Newton Abbot branch feels that it should reciprocate the ceremony to our Canadian colleagues and conduct a similar ceremony at Wolborough Cemetery where there are twenty-eight Commonwealth War Graves including three Canadians.

War Graves and Crosses

Standard Bearers awaiting the off! 

Standard Bearers and Cross layers in position

Deputy Mayor Alex Hall and Branch President Mike Joyce

Bay Brass provided the music