Past Wisbech Grammar School pupils who lost their lives protecting their country were remembered yesterday.

The roll of honour, including 19 names from the Great War and 33 from the Second World War, was read by head of school Chloe Short and deputy head boys Mehroze Asif and George Porter.

Poppy crosses were placed on the Stationers’ Memorial, which commemorates the years 1939 to 1942 when the school provided a shelter from the storm for the Stationers’ Company’s School,.

They were also placed on the memorial to Major Christopher Dockerty, who was killed in the Chinook helicopter crash on Mull of Kintyre in 1994 and posthumously awarded the Elizabeth Cross.

One of the poems selected for the event, ‘The soldier’, by Rupert Brooke, was read by Bob Hawkins, the father of Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins, who was serving as a sniper in Afghanistan when he was killed in an explosion that struck his vehicle as he was leading his men home from a routine patrol in Helmand province.

Upper sixth form student Rachel McGlone narrated the event and the last post and reveille were performed by Fraser McNab and Edward Page.