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Spalding to be represented on pilgrimage to Ypres




Spalding branch standard bearer Graham Hewitt (right) with Kevin Pritchard, who will lay a wreath.
Spalding branch standard bearer Graham Hewitt (right) with Kevin Pritchard, who will lay a wreath.

Two Spalding Royal British Legion members are taking part in the organisation’s mass pilgrimage to the First World War battlefields.

Standard bearer Graham Hewitt and wreath layer Kevin Pritchard will be among thousands recreating the Legion’s 1928 pilgrimage to the Somme and Ypres and the march to the Menin Gate .

The Great Pilgrimage 90 will see branch standards from across Britain represented at the landmark event in Belgium.

Graham's mum, branch membership secretary Doreen Hewitt (72) raised £1,000 for the trip with a six-mile walk last year, shortly after recovering from a knee op.

Doreen Hewitt with the Great Pilgrimage 90 wreath.
Doreen Hewitt with the Great Pilgrimage 90 wreath.

Doreen said: "I am very proud because Graham's great-grandfather - my husband Robin's grandfather, Albert George Burnett - was at the Somme.

"He was a dispatch rider and he saw the first tanks go onto the Somme."

Graham (49), who joined his mum on her walk, has been branch standard bearer since 2010.

He said: "There's at least 1,200 standard bearers going, plus the same number of wreath layers.

"It is going to be a massive parade. I am very proud to be carrying the standard for Spalding."

Graham is also a deputy standard bearer for the Legion at county level.

He works for East Midlands Ambulance Service as an ambulance technician.

Those taking part will be recreating the poignant day on August 8, 1928 when veterans and war widows visited the Somme and Ypres before marching to the Menin Gate in Ypres.

Graham doesn't have a military background - the Legion welcomes members from all walks of life - while Kevin (53) served for 20 years with the 5th Battalion Royal Green Jackets.

The former lance corporal takes part in the Remembrance Sunday parades in Spalding.

He said: "I march with the veterans down to Ayscoughfee."

Kevin says representing Spalding in Belgium will be "a very proud moment".

He now works as a forklift driver with Bakkavor in Spalding.



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