STUDENTS from Wiltshire College & University Centre in Trowbridge unexpectedly took centre stage alongside veterans at a Remembrance Day ceremony.

The 14 Uniformed Public Service students were at the Trowbridge War Memorial for the ceremony on Tuesday and had planned to read a poem after it was over. But, said, lecturer Georgina Hewson, they were invited to read the poem, Rupert Brooke’s The Soldier, during the ceremony in front of an audience of 100, including dignitaries and Trowbridge Mayor, Cllr Stephen Cooper.

“The poem was intended for us, as the students’ mark of respect,” said Georgina, “but the veterans asked them to read it to everyone during the ceremony.

“Although we’d read it once before arriving, it was still a surprise to them but they took it in their stride, they all read a line each and did really well. I was very proud of them because they read it beautifully, nice and loud despite the wind whistling around them and with great respect.”

The reading was greeted with applause by the crowd. “Everyone was very impressed and although there were one or two embarrassed faces among the students, I think they enjoyed it,” said Georgina.

A two-minute silence was impeccably observed at all four of the college’s campuses but Georgina was glad she was asked to bring her students, who are in the second year of a Level 3 course, to the War Memorial ceremony.

“It’s a wonderful experience for them to see just how emotive it is, because we talk about remembrance and the poppies, but to actually see veterans paying their respect, I think it brings it home to them,” she said.

“I wanted them to experience it and obviously pay their respects as well. It was really memorable cultural experience for them. They were the only young people at the ceremony and the veterans said how nice it was to see them there.”

She hopes to take more students next year. “I think it was nice to have both ends of the age range there, so it would be nice to carry on the tradition,” she said.

She said she wanted the students, who are all aged between 16 and 18, to experience the ceremony because many of them are set on military careers. “We’ve got some going into the Army and the RAF, university, fire and commando training so we’ve got a good range of all the public services,” said Georgina.

“Because of that I wanted them to have this first time experience to see the impact that it has and why it’s so important.”

The Soldier, By Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.