The wreath laying ceremony at Epping War Memorial and the Service of Remembrance at St John’s Church on Sunday were moving and sombre. Several people have said they throught that more people attended than normal. I am not good at judging crowd numbers but was impressed that not only the elderly and usual supects turned out. Every age-group was represented.

As the crowd stood still in the low sun during the two-minute silence – and because even the traffic along Epping High Street was stationary – we heard the low drone of an aircraft pass overhead. It brought to mind the aeroplanes which flew from North Weald during the Second World War and also those which flew across the North Sea to attack the airfeld and other targets in Essex and North London.

One of these planes missed its target and dropped its bombs on Spriggs Oak in Epping: just yards from where we stood on Sunday. Eight expectant mothers died as a result (their story is told here). The local civilian dead are commemorated by the laying of wreaths in the Garden of Remembrance at St John’s Church, immediately after the Service of Remembrance.