Continuing our theme of very short ceremonies, the February Last Post contained simply an Individual Remembrance and the sounding of the Last Post.

Our Individual Remembrance was civilian James John Cooper Wyatt who died on 7th February 1941 aged 77. He was married to Jessie Frances Wyatt, and they lived at 185 Stonhouse Street, Clapham, London. He was injured on the first day of The Blitz, and sadly died at Botleys Park War Hospital five months later.

Alan Lopez carried the Standard and in attendance was Eddie Jones of the Artists Rifles.

Due to the continued health situation in the UK, the January Last Post was an extremely small affair and the ceremony was cut to the absolute minimum to enable Brookwood Last Post members to pay their respects.

We remembered Donkeyman Saturnino Lopez Hernandez of the Mercantile Marine. A crew member aboard the S.S. “Euterpe” (Cardiff). On the 7th January 1916, the ship was either torpedoed or hit a mine in the North Sea off Hull and sunk. Aged 53, he is remembered on the Tower Hill Memorial, London.

Our Standard Bearer was Alan Lopez and we also had in attendance Keith Tarling, representing the Woking Royal Navy Association and parading the association Standard.

We welcomed members of the Intelligence Corps to our low key December ceremony. With a year of cancelled opportunities, we were privileged to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the Intelligence Corps.

All sections of Brookwood Scouts joined the ceremony with one of their Scouts performing Standard Bearer duties.

Colonel (retired) Nick Fox described the work of the Intelligence Corps and serving members laid a wreath.

We remembered four of the Corps personnel with no known grave whose names are on the Brookwood Memorial: Captain Clement Marc JUMEAU and Captain John Kenneth MACALISTER (a Canadian) of the Intelligence Corps and F Section, SOE; and Lieutenant Michael James CARTWRIGHT, (formerly COULOMB), and Major Philip Frank CHAMIER of the Intelligence Corps and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6).

The ceremony’s poem for the day, untitled, was scratched on the wall of her prison cell in Budapest by Hannah Szenes, shortly before she was executed:

One – two – three… eight feet long
Two strides across, the rest is dark…
Life is a fleeting question mark
One – two – three… maybe another week.
Or the next month may still find me here,
But death, I feel is very near.
I could have been 23 next July
I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. I lost.

Alan Lopez was our Standard bearer, Paul McCue read the poem and assisted with research, and Tony McCallum was the photographer.