WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Those four words were spoken in every village and town in East Hampshire on Sunday as residents came out in their thousands to pay their respects to the glorious dead.

Huge crowds gathered in Alton, Bordon and Petersfield but there were decent turnouts all over the district, in villages from Buriton to Bentley.

The Rev’d Canon Will Hughes encouraged the crowds in the Square not to face the soldiers, veterans and parade participants, but to look forward with them.

He said: “We remember that those who went to serve in Flanders Fields and the trenches were not people we stared at, they were people like us.

“People from our communities and streets. They lived in houses we live in now. So we stand not to look at them, but to look with them, we come together.”

The service included readings in The Square by mayor Cllr JC Crissey and David Lodrick, president of the town’s Royal British Legion branch.

The participants then marched to the war memorial for the sounding of the Last Post, an impeccable two-minute silence and reading of the Roll of Honour. Numerous wreaths were laid, including one produced by Herne Junior School pupils.

There were similar scenes, albeit on a smaller scale in Sheet, Liss, East Meon and Four Marks while East Hampshire MP, Damian Hinds, and Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire, Alan Titchmarsh, attended the Holybourne ceremony.