Until I moved here in 2016,  I didn’t know that Upton was the home of a Dunkirk hero: Captain William Tennant, of the destroyer HMS Wolfhound.

Nicknamed “Dunkirk Joe” by the men under his command, Tennant was the cool-headed “Beachmaster” who co-ordinated the evacuation. Arriving off Dunkirk on 26^th May, Tennant stayed until June 2^nd, by which time some 378,829 allied troops had been evacuated. Tennant’s final act before departing was to sail up and down the beaches with a megaphone, calling out for any remaining British troops to come forward and be rescued.

Sadly, Tennant didn’t feature in Christopher Nolan’s recent Dunkirk film, but it’s pretty obvious that Nolan’s fictional character Commander Bolton (played by Kenneth Branagh) was largely inspired by Tennant role in the evacuation.

Tennant’s affinity for beach-operations also saw him play a key role in the D-Day landings in 1944. Now a Rear-Admiral, he was placed in charge of the floating Mulberry Harbours that were towed across the English Channel to Normandy. Within 12 days of D-Day, the Mulberry Harbours at Omaha and Arromanches were fully operational, and over the next ten months, two and a half million men, a half million vehicles, and four million tons of supplies passed through them.

Tennant was knighted n 1945, and after retiring, he returned to Upton, where he died in 1963. A statue of him stands near the Pepperpot in Upton, where we gather on Remembrance Sunday every year to remember all those who gave so much in the service of our freedom.

Remembrance does of course take many forms: both personal and civic.

If your family had a funeral with our churches over the last twelve months, you should already have been invited to come to our Service for the Faithful Departed (Sunday 17 November, 4pm). But if not, or if you have someone else you’d like to remember, even if we didn’t take the funeral, then you are welcome to join in! During the service, we read out the names of the people being remembered, so please pass their names to the church office (01684 591241 or admin@hopechurchfamily.org) as soon as possible.

You’re also invited to our civic Remembrance Service (10:45am, Sunday 10 November). Upton’s British Legion recently closed, and as part of this year’s Remembrance service we’ll be laying up their standard, and Upton’s new Baptist Minister, Amy Wearing, will be speaking. After the service, we’ll march down to the war memorial at the Pepperpot, for the laying of wreaths. You can find details of the Remembrance services in our other communities on page __.

Jesus taught that the sacrifices people make reveal the love they have for us. When he said,

Greater love has no one than this, to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)

he was pointing us forward to his own self-sacrificial death on the cross, helping us see it as a proof of God’s love for us.

And as we look back on those who we have personally loved and lost, it’s possible to apply Jesus words to them also, which is why it is so important that every year we gather to remember those who gave their lives for our freedom.