Battle’s Over – A Nation’sTribute 11th November 2018

Villages around the country were invited to light their Beacons on the 11th November 2018 as a tribute to 100 years of remembrance.

The Beacon in the Spinney at Newchurch was lit at 7.00pm in tribute.
Guests were treated to hot dogs and mulled wine.  A short service of remembrance was led by Peter Dunning, this was followed by a firework display kindly donated by Webbs of Tenterden.

On the 3rd August 1914, Britain’s Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, was looking out of his office window. It was dusk, and gas lights were being lit along London’s Mall, leading to Buckingham Palace, when he remarked to a friend, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”. Our country was about to be plunged into the darkness of the First World War, and it would be four long years before Britain and Europe would again experience the light of peace

In commemoration and remembrance of the end of the war and the many millions who were killed or came home dreadfully wounded, a chain of 1,000 beacons were lit throughout the United Kingdom, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and UK Overseas Territories at 7pm on the 11th November 2018 – a century after the guns fell silent.

Newchurch Parish Council joined more than 320 town and parish councils and lit the beacon at 7pm on 11th November 2018. 

This event commemorated the huge army of men and women on the home front who, often in dangerous and exhausting conditions, underpinned the war effort - keeping the wheels of industry turning, bringing the harvests home and ensuring the nation did not starve.  The beacons symbolised the ‘light of hope’ that emerged from the darkness of war.