Hundreds turn out for Murrayville Remembrance Day service in Langley

Hundreds of members of the public attended the Remembrance Day service at Murrayville Cemetery in Langley on Wednesday, Nov. 11.

The ceremony is organized each year by the Murrayville Community Memorial Hall Association. It included the Last Post and Reveille, along with a poem, "The Parade Ground Beneath Our Feet," written by Fred Dalkeith of Aldergrove and recited by Master Cpl. Greg Trigg, a veteran. A prayer written by Grace Muller of the association was read by RCMP Sgt. Kirby Adams.

Emcee Frank Bucholtz read the names of local people who have died since last year's services. They included Ron Moore, 99, a Royal Canadian Navy Second World War veteran; Nellie Parks, 89, a Royal Canadian Air Force veteran; Percy Smith, 102, who served with the British Merchant Marine in the Second World War; and Rick Scheller and Linda Dolby, 74, both with the Royal Canadian Navy.

Jack Airone, 103, moved from England to Canada in the late 1940s after serving in the Second World War. He worked as a mechanic on aircraft including Spitfires and Tiger Moths. "I was in India, Burma," he said. "It was five or six years." Airone has attended many Remembrance Day services, but the one at Murrayville is special to him because his wife, who died a few years ago, is buried there, and a space beside her is reserved for him.

The Murrayville cenotaph was erected in 1921, but the site had no formal Remembrance Day service until 2017. Organizers hoped it would become an annual event.