The Act of Remembrance

Every year, the Royal British Legion supports Remembrance events across the UK.

The RBL encourages local and regional communities to produce Remembrance commemorations of their own. At the core of these events is the Act of Remembrance.

The Act of Remembrance is brief and non-religious, making it exceptionally well-suited to personalised commemorations. You may assemble whatever readings, music or other elements you wish to accompany the Act of Remembrance in order to make your own ceremony or event relevant to your particular community. 

The RBL doesn't prescribe what these should be, but services should be inclusive of all members of the community.

The Act of Remembrance consists of the following:

The Exhortation is recited:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them. (All - We will remember them)

(The words for The Exhortation are an extract from a poem written by Robert Laurence Binyon called "For the Fallen". It was written in mid-September 1914, just a few weeks after the outbreak of The First World War. 

The Last Post is sounded.

The Two Minute Silence is observed.

Reveille is sounded.

The Kohima Epitaph is recited (optional):

When you go home, tell them of us and say,

For your tomorrow, we gave our today.

(The Kohima Epitaph is the epitaph carved on the Memorial of the 2nd British Division in the cemetery of Kohima (North-East India).  The verse is attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875-1958), and is thought to have been inspired by the epitaph written by Simonides to honour the Greeks who fell at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480BC.