Remembrance in Worthing and Adur 2023 – round-up of services and parades

This year’s Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal was launched on October 26, with a new, plastic-free poppy available.

This year’s plastic-free poppy is the first redesign of the iconic symbol of Remembrance in a generation, and a Worthing-born veteran was among the first to wear it this year. To find out more or to donate to the Poppy Appeal, visit rbl.org.uk

As always, a number of Remembrance events are planned across Worthing and Adur.

The Field of Remembrance at the war memorial outside Worthing Town Hall will be opened at 11am on Monday, November 6.

On Armistice Day, Saturday, November 11, a two-minute silence will be observed at the memorial. And on Remembrance Sunday, November 12, the two-minute silence will start on the first stroke of the town hall clock at 11am.

Worthing mayor Jon Roser and others will then lay wreaths for the fallen and take the salute at the March Past in front of the town hall at about 11.30am, after the Remembrance service.

Mr Roser said: “I am extremely proud and humbled to represent my town and I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the many local organisations from Worthing and further afield who continue to support our annual Remembrance Service and Parade.”

On Remembrance Sunday in Shoreham, the parade will assemble at the Shoreham Centre, in Pond Road, at 9.20am before marching via Western Road and Brunswick Road to St Mary’s Church, where the service will be held at 10am. The wreath-laying, including the Last Post, two-minute silence and Reveille, will begin at 11am at the war memorial in East Street.

This year’s Remembrance Sunday parade in Southwick will feature a marching band, which will set off from The Romans in Manor Hall Road before joining the rest of the participants in the Southwick Square car park. The parade will depart at 10.30am for the service at the war memorial on Southwick Green at 11am.

Debbie Bushby, a former Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service nurse, said this year’s event would be grander than in recent years, following lots of fundraising locally.

She added: “There has been a lot of Support from Louise Goble and her team Lee and Sarah at The Romans, and Dale Carey and Rod Gates, two ex-servicemen, who have organised all sorts to raise money.

“We needed over £4,000 so they have all done incredibly well. The event will now consist of a piper, a full 32-man marching band, the Oily Rags, veteran military vehicle club, the mods with all their flags, the Shoreham fire service and all of us veterans .

“It would be lovely if local people can come along and support us. The older veterans are often stuck indoors and it would be lovely for us to get them all out too – after all, it was them, during the war, who were the ones who risked their lives so we could live safely.”

Lancing’s parade will muster in South Street at 2.15pm on Remembrance Sunday before marching to the war memorial in South Street for a wreath-laying at 2.45pm. There will then be a service at St Michael & All Angels’ Church at 3pm.

Also on Remembrance Sunday, there will be a service followed by wreath laying, two-minute silence and reading of names at the war memorial at the lychgate in the grounds of St Mary's Church, Church Lane, Sompting.