Pupils, staff, distinguished guests and Old Monmothians today took part in a moving Act of Remembrance, led by the Chaplain, Reverend Clifford Swartz, on Armistice Day at Monmouth School for Boys.

Major General (Retd) Tim Cross CBE, a bomb disposal expert who also commanded the UK’s largest Army division, was a special guest.

General Cross spent several years as Army Adviser to the UK House of Commons Defence Committee.

He now works with a host of charities and is a Local Lay Minister in the Church of England and an itinerant preacher and international speaker.

Headmaster at Monmouth School for Boys, Mr Simon Dorman; Head Boy, Shay Lewis; and Head Girl at Monmouth School for Girls, Sophie Morrison, were among those who laid a wreath at the War Memorial.

Year 8 musician, Robert Burnett, aged 12, played The Last Post and 11-year-old Harrison Rotchell, from Year 7, read the Kohima Epitaph.

Year 13 student, Gregor May, aged 17, was the school’s standard bearer.

The school’s War Memorial was conceived in 1919 by the Old Monmothians to remember the 76 old boys who fell in World War One.Meanwhile, at Monmouth School for Girls, Reverend Swartz led a short service that involved General Cross; Headmistress at Monmouth School for Girls, Mrs Jessica Miles; Head Girl, Sophie Morrison; and Liv Armstrong, the Head of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) at Monmouth School for Girls.

The memorial at Monmouth School for Girls is in honour of former student, Maud Edwards, a nurse, who was killed when an explosion destroyed the Royal Navy cruiser, HMS Natal, in December 1915.

Armistice Day falls on 11th November each year – the day in 1918 that the armistice was signed to end the First World War after four years of fighting.