The annual Remembrance Exhibition in St Michael & All Angels Church is now open, marking 80 years since the end of World War 2 in 1945 and 110 years since the World War 1 battles of Gallipoli and Loos in 1915. It will be open every day until Sunday November 16th 2025. The church’s Remembrance Sunday Choral Requiem Mass on November 9th 2025 will begin at 9.55am, followed by the procession to the Bedford Park Memorial Seat, outside the Parish Hall, for the Last Post, laying of wreaths and two minutes’ silence at 11am.
Each November, we highlight St Michael’s and Bedford Park’s links to WW1 and WW2, including the stories of the
128 names on our war memorials explored on our WW1 Project website, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. It was created by the late David Beresford and has been painstakingly restored this year by Mike Halson.
In 2025, we are remembering 15 men from our war memorials who died in WW1 in 1915: large display panels in the church show where they lived in Chiswick, how they died and other historic documents (see Cyril Austin, Harry Taverner and Richard Gamble);
We are also sharing children’s experiences of WW2 in 1945,
through two of the books featured at this year’s Chiswick Book Festival:
‘The People’s War’ in Chiswick explores childhood memories of:
– the V1 ‘doodlebug’ in Bath Rd, which destroyed Chiswick Polytechnic (now ArtsEd) & the East Window of St Michael & All Angels Church
– and the first V2 rocket, which landed in Staveley Road, Chiswick.
‘Stranded in France’ is the illustrated memoir of David Crane’s mother, Joan Langrish, who was 16, staying with her pen-pal in the south of France, when war broke out. After two years, she reached home via Lisbon, later joining the SIS where her boss was Kim Philby! Stranded in France AI – info sheet with PayPal.
The exhibition is held in memory of David Beresford, former archivist and churchwarden who led the St Michael & All Angels Church World War 1 Project, tracking the lives of the 128 people named on its war memorials. David died in 2022 at the age of 82. From 2014 till 2018, to mark the centenary of WW1, he created illustrated panels which were displayed in the church, commemorating those who had died in each of the years 1914-1918. The stories of all 128 names are told in detail on the WW1 website, with maps and details of the roads where they lived.
Several of these panels are displayed as part of this year’s Exhibition.
