The long-awaited official unveiling and dedication of the Association of Perth Veterans’ war memorial will take place in Perth city centre on Saturday, June 26 - Armed Forces Day.
The 11am ceremony will also see the raising of the Armed Forces Flag at the memorial which has been erected in St John Street, at the rear of historic St John’s Kirk, which houses the city’s war memorial to those lost in conflicts during two world wars.
The event was to have taken place last November, in time for the country’s Remembrance Day services and parades, but was delayed then - and on several subsequent occasions - because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“The APV was formed in 2018 as a pressure group to ensure that those men and women who served in the forces from the Perth area, as well as those who gave their lives for our country - and the memorials erected to honour them - aren’t forgotten,” retired Colonel Bert Macrae, association secretary, explained yesterday.
“Our main aim from day one was to get a proper war memorial erected in the centre of Perth.
“The city has never had a proper war memorial and over the years wreaths were laid at the Mercat Cross, opposite Perth City Hall.
“This is not a war memorial - it was erected in 1913 to the memory of King Edward, Queen Victoria’s oldest son.”
The APV was formed on September 22, 2018, for men and women of the Navy, Army and Air Force from the Perth area to get together socially, and in comradeship, to help those veterans in need.
Instrumental in setting it up were Willie Howie (RMP), SSM Jock Sime (Scots Guards and RCT), and Col. Macrae (Black Watch, Paras and SAS).
They were joined by Chris Ahern (RAF), who took over as chairman from Willie Howie, and invaluable support was also received from the RASC/RCT Association (Perth) and their chairman WO1/ASM, retired, David Taylor, and the chairman of the RAF Association Jimmy Urquhart.
It took lengthy discussions with Perth and Kinross Council to find - and then agree - a suitable site, obtain planning consent and then obtain funding for the memorial.
The APV is indebted to the Perth Common Good Fund for its substantial financial contribution - and also to stonemason Derek Main, from Aberuthven, who designed and built the memorial at modest cost to the association.
Permission also had to be obtained from the Ministry of Defence directorate of defence communications to include the badges of the Navy, Army and Air Force on the monument.
A bronze plaque accompanying the badges bears the inscription: “Erected in remembrance of all the men and women of HM armed forces who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our country. At the going down of the sun and in the morning- we will remember them.”
The memorial will be dedicated by the Rev (Col) Ian Evans, the APV padre, and will then be unveiled by 95-year-old Scone veteran Donald McPhee, of the Royal Army Service Corps. Perth and Kinross Provost Dennis Melloy will lay a wreath.
Since the APV was set up, its wide variety of local projects has included the repair of the neglected grave of a Victoria Cross winner in Perth’s Wellshill Cemetery and the ongoing care of the Korean War Memorial in the city’s Lindsay Court.
It now has almost 200 members and its own Facebook page, as well as a breakfast club which meets on the first Saturday of each month at 9.30am in the Perth Ex-Servicemen’s Club.
Membership is free and all the APV requires is the veteran’s name, unit and service number.
