On REMEMBRANCE DAY  there was a short service around the flagpole at 11am.

This poem, written by the late Peter Adams who served in the Royal AirForce at Biggin Hill, was read at the flagpole service on Remembrance Day, on the 11.11.11. 
​The bell was rung in 3 sets of 11.
Remembrance Sunday Service 10 November 2024

​It was a dull cloudy day but the weather did not stop people filling the Chapel to standing room only and singing enthusiastically in Remembrance.  Many service veterans attended, young and not so young. Cadets from Biggin Hill Air Training Corps attended, and many new recruits who looked very smart in their school uniforms. Our Minister and Preacher was Reverend George Bailey, no stranger to the Chapel or St Mark's Parish Church in the village. Our organist was Eric Johnstone and Nigel Garrad, bugler played the Last Post. After the service there was a short service with the Kohima Epitaph  and the Last Post was sounded again and wreaths were laid near the Gate Guardians, Veterans and a few friends met in the cafe afterwards. Unfortunately not everyone could go to the cafe as the site is closed for winter on Sundays, BUT services continue at 9.30 am untill 22nd December.
Click here if you would like to see the Order of Service.         remembrance_service_2024_as_at_1000_31oct_24.pdf

Photos curtesy of Jane Oliver, Philip Bisset, D Evans, +GDB.
Remembrance painting is returned to the Chapel after six years in the wilderness
Picture
The replica statue of the Infant of Prague was presented to the Chapel on 21st July 2016 by Cardinal Dominik Duka, the Archbishop of Prague. On that day, Brigadier General  Emil  Boček was brought to Biggin Hill by the Czech Air Force for a flight in a Spitfire. 
The General, (resplendent in his uniform at age 93,) a wartime Spitfire pilot, was one of the last surviving Czechoslovak Royal Air Force pilots of World War ll.  
A contingent of Airforce personnel, Embassy staff, Cardinal Dominik Duka, and Roman Catholic officials accompanied him. A Mass was said by Father Gerald Flood, a Czech priest, with the Cardinal. 
The painting, on the left, was created for this occasion, and presented to the Trustees for the Chapel. It was never put in the Chapel and has only just been "found" again. It is on display for Remembrance near to the Infant of Prague.
(Emil  Boček 25 Feb 1923 - 25 Mar 2023)