Henry Allingham <img src ="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43017000/jpg/_43017849_henry_allingham1pa.jpg"> Harry Patch <img src ="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/images/gal_tommy_patch.jpg"> William Stone <img src ="http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/34/images/113844943217302293243_1.jpg">
Harry Patch At the Ceremony this morning did'nt want to part with the wreath he was laying. He wanted to lay it himself, bless him. His helpers had to struggle to get it from him.
BBC documentary on him in a couple of weeks. <p class="arielHeading1">BBC salutes The Last Fighting Tommy</p><p class="standfirst">Harry Patch, the only remaining British survivor of the trenches, draws tributes from Poet Laureate and Master of the Queen's Music</p><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" border="0"><tbody><tr><td class="bodyText"><p class="content">The Queen's Composer and the Queen's Poet have joined forces to pay tribute to Britain's last survivor of the First World War trenches. The collaboration is featured in a new documentary about 110 year-old Harry Patch, due for transmission on BBC Four on November 24th at 7.30pm. </p><p class="content">The Master of the Queen's Music, Peter Maxwell Davies has composed a new choral work, setting a poem by the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, to music. The piece was premiered in Portsmouth cathedral on Remembrance Sunday with a performance by the London Mozart Players, a chamber choir from Portsmouth Grammar School and the cathedral's choristers. Andrew Motion's poem was originally commissioned by the regional current affairs series Inside Out West. </p><p class="content">Poignant journey</p><p class="content">Maxwell Davies says, 'Andrew Motion's poem is absolutely brilliant. I really like it and the whole thing, although the subject is so terrible, somehow makes it easier to come to terms with. I hope the music will let us think about it and just realise what a terrible waste of a whole generation that war was'. </p><p class="content">The BBC Four programme is presented by the historian Richard van Emden who has become close friends with Harry, through writing his biography, 'The Last Fighting Tommy'. </p><p class="content">Van Emden says, 'He has a certain grace about him. He has a certain quality which you don't find in a lot of people in this modern, cynical world'. </p><p class="content">The programme also features a trip to the battlefield in Belgium where so many of Harry's generation were lost. Harry was a Lewis gunner for the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry during the battle of Passchendaele in 1917. He returned to the area in September to unveil a memorial stone at the spot where he and his comrades crossed the Steenbeek prior to their successful assault on the village of Langemarck. The inscription on the stone, a gift from Harry, says it is erected to the memory of fallen comrades and to honour the courage, sacrifice and passing of the Great War generation.</p><p class="content">Although the trip was supposed to be relatively low key, word about Harry's arrival in Belgium soon got out to local people and he found himself lauded and photographed wherever he went. Harry's determined belief is that we should remember the fallen on both sides of the line so he made a point of visiting the German cemetery at Langemarck. In the graveyard he collected some acorns to plant back in the garden of his care home in Somerset. </p><p class="content"></p>[*]'Private Harry Patch' is shown first as part of the regional current affairs series Inside Out West on BBC One (West) on Wednesday November 12th at 7.30pm. The BBC Four showing will be on Monday November 24th at 7.30pm. </p><p class="content"> </p></td></tr></tbody></table>
Tear in the eye this morning when we had the minutes silence. God bless everyone who lost their lives and give thanks to them three men who are the real meaning of 'heroes'
