More than a hundred people gathered at Lydiard Park to pay their respects to the fallen servicemen on Remembrance Day.

Members of the Swindon Army Cadet Corps, the RAF Police, RAF Brize Norton and Shrivenham Military Academy attended the service in the Field of Remembrance to observe Armistice Day.

Reverend Trevor Day from St Mary's Church acknowledged the poignancy of 2021 in particular. It is 100 years since the Royal British Legion was founded and this year that troops returned from Afghanistan after 20 years.

The names of all the Lydiard Tregoze men who died in the World Wars were read out by Reverend Teresa Townsend. Sergeant Mark Gibson from the RAF who died in 2005 was also remembered.

A bugler from the Swindon Army Cadet Corps marked the solemn occasion by playing the 'Last Post' while the corps lowered the standards before the two minutes silence.

Children from Oliver Tomkins Primary School, Westlea Primary School and Lydiard Millicent laid poppies after the two minutes silence.

Martyn Cook comes to the service every year to pay tribute to his aunt's husband who was killed in 1940, along with the rest of his crew, when their bomber was shot down over Albania.

He died on November 7 aged 20, just months after marrying Martyn's aunt Nellie. The pair had gone to school with each other since they were five and lived on opposite ends of the same road.

Martyn said: "It's a very sad story. She was pregnant at the time when he was killed but she miscarried.

"She never got over it and I promised her before she died that I would come and remember him every year. She never remarried so my two brothers and I were like her children.

"She was always very emotional so she didn't get to the services in the Royal Albert Hall. We would watch it with her and she cried when she saw it on the television.

"The Commonwealth War Graves Commission set up memorial stones in Greece and then moved them to Albania when they could. We don't know where his body is because someone dug up the bodies in Albania.

"When my aunt died, my younger brother interred her ashes in Albania in a box but the British Embassy contacted us later to tell us that someone had actually dug up the box and stolen it.

"So absolutely Remembrance Day has a personal significance for me and I also try to get up to the cenotaph in London.

"War is a horrible thing. We have our freedoms today because of what other people have done on our behalf."

The Army Cadet Force is a youth organisation sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and the British Army. The Swindon cadet corps has been supporting Lydiard Park's Remembrance service since it started.

Major Lee Bampfield said: "We make a huge thing about remembrance and respect. Respect is part of our core values and obviously we teach it throughout the year.

"One of our instructors has been round and given a special briefing on the importance of Remembrance and the meaning of it.

"Although we are a youth organisation linked to the army, a lot of the kids have family links so understand first-hand what it means.

"It's an occasion to remember what people have given up and what our uniform represents.

"People have given their lives for it in service. That's why we go to these events. We are almost the face of the army when it comes to Remembrance.

"There's not only the normal sort of meaning of it, but that pride that comes with the uniform and representing what the uniform stands for. "

Oliver Tomkins school was one of the local schools which attended the service. Pupils are taught about Remembrance Day and the meaning behind it. Usually the school sends a choir and children write messages on poppies, but Covid means they were unable to send a bigger group to the service.

Year 5 teacher John I'anson said: "Those servicemen and women have sacrificed themselves for this country so it is important we as a school commemorate them."

There will be another service in the Field of Remembrance at Lydiard Park on Sunday at 10.45am. The church is also running a two minutes silence each day at 2pm until November 28.