At St Mary’s Church on Putney High Street, the familiar ritual will unfold once more this morning. At 10.45am, the Mayor of Wandsworth, Jeremy Ambache, will join veterans, serving personnel, and members of the public for the annual Service of Remembrance.
Wreaths will be laid at the war memorial, each one a promise that we will not forget. At 11am precisely, Putney will fall silent – two minutes when the roar of traffic fades and the only sound is the wind in the plane trees, and perhaps, if we’re quiet enough, the echo of names read aloud over the decades.
These services matter because remembrance is not abstract. It’s personal. Every name on Putney’s war memorial represents a life cut short, a family changed forever, a future that never came to be. Many were sons and daughters of this very neighbourhood – young people who walked these same streets before being called to serve.
Walk through Putney today and the scars of war are still visible if you know where to look. Victorian terraces suddenly interrupted by a 1950s house, a modern block standing awkwardly between period buildings – each gap in the rhythm of the streetscape marks where a bomb fell. On Festing Road, a simple paving slab commemorates those from that street alone who never came home. These quiet markers dot our neighbourhood, alongside the more formal monuments across Putney and London, each one a story waiting to be remembered.
The ceremony at St Mary’s is one of several taking place across Wandsworth today. On Tuesday, November 11th – Armistice Day itself – there will be a Service of Remembrance at the war memorial in Battersea Park, a striking Portland stone monument created by renowned war artist Eric Kennington to honour the 24th (London) Division.
Everyday remembrance
What makes this weekend particularly poignant is that it coincides with Interfaith Week, a reminder that the values our war dead fought to defend – tolerance, freedom, community – are sustained not through grand gestures but through daily acts of understanding and respect.
That spirit – of standing together despite our differences – is perhaps the truest form of remembrance we can offer.
If you’re able to attend this morning’s service at St Mary’s, you’ll be part of something that connects us not just to our past, but to each other. If you can’t make it, wherever you are at 11am, take those two minutes. Remember them. Remember what they gave. Remember why it mattered.
Lest we forget.
