Children attend Remembrance ceremony at Fairlop Waters Country Park

More than 180 pupils attended a Remembrance ceremony at Fairlop Waters Country Park this morning.

Pupils from John Bramston, Mossford Green, Fullwood and Manford Way primary schools joined by Redbridge mayor Cllr Barbara White for two minutes of silence at 11am in memory of the pilots who died fighting in the First and Second World Wars.

David Martin, chairman of the Fairlop Heritage group, said: “This is a first – we have 186 children attending and it is brilliant.

“It would be lovely if children in Fairlop that day can talk about it when they are my age. It is a very important place with more than 4,000 years of history.”

Mr Martin, 72, has been organising the Remembrance commemoration at the airfields since 2009 and hopes to honour every one of the 18 countries which were represented there during the wars.

This year, Ireland and Russia were honoured, with their national anthems played while representatives of both countries look on.

Lt Claude Handley Trotter, from County Galway, Ireland, who died in 1918 and Pilot Officer Stanislav Kurowicki, from Kotelniki, Russia, who died in 1943, were honoured.

This was the first Fairlop ceremony without Harold Bennett – the first pilot to fly a war mission from Fairlop aerodrome during the Second World War – who died in January, aged 93.

The commemoration was organised by the Fairlop Heritage Group.