Remembrance Sunday: Choral Requiem Mass & Procession

Remembrance at St Michael & All Angels – 1915-1945-2025

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1. Our Remembrance Sunday Choral Requiem Mass was at 9.55am on Sunday November 9th 2025.
At the end of the service, we processed to the Bedford Park War Memorial outside the Parish Hall for The Last Post, the laying of wreaths and the two minutes silence (above). See photographs of the 2024 Requiem Mass.

In the church we display more than 500 poppies knitted by the congregation, a dozen ceramic poppies from the Tower of London display and half a dozen ‘There but not there’ silhouettes representing the fallen. At the back of the church we display 15 panels showing details of the 15 men on our war memorials who died in 1915.
Mass setting: Requiem by G Faure. The Choir of St Michael & All Angels, director of music Jonathan Dods. Preacher: Fr Kevin Morris.
Readings: 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38.
Hymns in service booklet: O Christ the Lord, O Christ the King; Son of God, eternal Saviour; God save our gracious King; Abide with me.

All welcome. Youth Church, Children’s Church and Creche: Young St Michael’s autumn term dates. Refreshments afterwards.

Photos below: Remembrance Sunday 2024

2. St Michael & All Angels is supporting the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal collections at Turnham Green station. Scroll down to see photos of guest collector Al Murray, The Pub Landlord and WW2 podcaster on London Poppy Day.

3. Visit our exhibition in the church, in memory of David Beresford, who led our WW1 Project and carried out the research. Every November, we highlight a selection of St Michael’s Remembrance links to World War 1 and World War 2, and the 128 names on our war memorials. See their stories and pictures on our WW1 Project website, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

4. In this year’s exhibition, Remembrance 1915-1945-2025, we are remembering 15 men named on our war memorials who died in WW1 in 1915 (see Centenary poster, right) and also sharing children’s stories of WW2 in Chiswick in 1945, through two of the books featured at this year’s Chiswick Book Festival: The People’s War and Stranded in France.

5. Our earlier commemorations in 2025:
– On Bank Holiday Monday, May 5th 2025, we marked 80 years since VE Day at The Big Sing outside St Michael & All Angels Church.
– In September, the Chiswick Book Festival held several sessions marking 80 years since the end of WW2.

In 2024, we marked 80 years since D-Day on June 6th 1944, through the works of war artist Ray Howard-Jones who lived in Chiswick, and significant losses on the Home Front in Chiswick that year, including the first V2, which landed in Staveley Road, Chiswick,  on September 8th 1944. Read Commemorating the Chiswick V2 – Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society.

In 2023 we focused on ‘Chiswick Women in War’ with an exhibition online and in the church, in memory of David Beresford, who led the WW1 Project and carried out the research.

In 2022 we marked Remembrance Day, Friday November 11th, with a reading of Cosmo’s War, a play by Bernard Adams, based on the WW1 letters of the artist Cosmo Clark, to and from his family at 44 Rusthall Avenue, Bedford Park. The title role was taken by Jamie White, a former member of our Youth Church, who took part in a Royal British Legion Poppy Run. The production raise money for another veterans’ charity, Combat Stress.

2021 was the Centenary of the Royal British Legion and the Poppy Appeal.We displayed more than 500 poppies knitted by the congregation, on the Parish Memorial screen. See photos of our 2021 Remembrance Sunday Requiem Mass here.
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In 2025, St Michael & All Angels is supporting the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal collections at Turnham Green station.
See photos of guest collector Al Murray, The Pub Landlord and WW2 podcaster on London Poppy Day.

Left to right, below: Al Murray, Councillor Gerald McGregor, Chiswick poppy organiser Mark James, TFL customer services supervisor Tony Currie, poppy volunteer Cathie James, Chiswick poppy organiser Elisabeth Whittaker.