Emma has just returned from Normandy, France where she sung in various remembrance ceremonies to commemorate the seventy-third anniversary of D-day. On 6^th June, 1944, the Allies campaign to liberate Western Europe began on the beaches of Normandy. The stories of those involved are humbling.

During the Royal British Legion’s remembrance service in Bayeux this year, the Revd. Patrick Irwin suggested we could regard D-day as a mosaic. Whilst today, we can see the whole picture of the military campaign, the picture is composed of single stones. Each soldier’s story forms a single stone. It was a privilege to meet D-day veterans and to listen to their stories.

Emma sang for remembrance ceremonies in Chouain, Jerusalem, Colleville-Montgomery, Bénouville, Bayeux, and Arromanches for the Normandy Veterans Association, the Royal British Legion, the 52nd Oxford and Bucks regiment, and the family Bates. The tour ended with a concert at Château de Bénouville with the Band of Liberation and Pipes.

The next day, at the lunch of the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, Emma was serenaded by some of the veterans themselves. You can watch a short film of veteran Danny McCrudden singing “When you were sweet sixteen” here.

On Friday, 12^th May, Emma sang as a guest soloist at the reunion of the Dutch Royal Guards Regiment of Fusiliers ‘Princess Irene.’

The Princess Irene Brigade participated in D-day in 1944 and in the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945.

On 12^th May, current members and veterans were invited to the Generaal-Majoor De Ruyter van Steveninck Barracks in Oirschot, the Netherlands for a reunion. HRH Prince Jaime Bernardo of Bourbon-Parma, Count of Bardi, the son of Princess Irene was present.

In the Netherlands, ceremonies of remembrance are held on 4th May: the anniversary of the day before the Netherlands was liberated from the Second World War Nazi occupation. Ceremonies take place throughout the country and wreaths are laid at monuments. The Dutch have a “taptoe signal,” used in the same way as the British and Commonwealth’s “Last Post,” which is played before silence is observed during remembrance ceremonies. Two minutes silence is observed across the country at eight o’clock in the evening.

This year, Emma sang for the Remembrance Ceremony in Leiden. The Mayors of Leiden, Oegstgeest, and Oxford, Leiden’s twin city in the United Kingdom, attended the ceremony and laid wreaths. Retired General Arie van der Vlis gave a thought-provoking speech about Dutch military engagements since the Second World War. Also present was an elderly veteran who fought at the bridge and the airfield near the monument. Fifty-one Dutch soliders perished there in 1940.

Emma Brown was honoured to sing during the ANZAC Day memorial service at Ockenburg Commonwealth War Cemetery in The Hague, the Netherlands. Eighty-seven soldiers, sailors, and airmen who died during the Second World War are buried there: their nationalities include Australian, British, New Zealand, and Canadian.

The ANZAC memorial ceremony includes familiar texts from British Remembrance ceremonies, such as “They shall grow not old,” and in addition a text from Ataturk: “You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.” It was humbling to hear the Turkish Ambassador speak these words.

Her Excellency Ms Janet Lowe, Ambassador of New Zealand, gave a short address. She stated: “War is a bloody and terrible thing, and the young soldiers found strength in all sorts of ways and in all sorts of places. In unfashionable but eternal concepts such as loyalty to King and country. In God. In the bottle. In the youthful self-belief that ‘death on the battlefield will never happen to me’.” She continued by expressing gratitude for our current peaceful situation in the Netherlands, and the need to maintain the ANZAC spirit of “courage, endurance, ingenuity, the willingness to make sacrifices – including the ultimate sacrifice – for the greater good, and last but not least, loyalty to one’s mates.”

It was a humbling ceremony, especially realising how far away from home many of those buried in Ockenburg were laid to rest. Emma led the hymns and National Anthems, and sang “Abide with Me.”

Unfortunately, Emma has been forced to take a short break due to a recent road traffic accident. She was hit by a car when cycling, causing an AC-luxation (type III) to her right shoulder and bruised ribs. She hopes to resume singing in late April.