I was touched to have been invited to sing for ANZAC Day by the New Zealand Embassy to the Netherlands. The embassy organised the traditional dawn ceremony, with beautiful Maōri elements such as the karanga (a call) as we approached the war cemetery and a waiata (a community song) after the Ambassador’s speech. I sang “Going Home” and led the national anthems.

Perhaps most moving of all were the words of Atatürk from 1934: Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives… You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehemets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours… you, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away 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.

For me, this captures the spirit of remembrance: reconciliation, the acknowledgment of suffering, and, through this, the avoidance of future conflict and war.

CWGC Westduin Cemetery, The Hague, the Netherlands, 25th April 2025.

I’m really looking forward to joining Britain’s Got Talent’s winner Colin Thackery and actress Joanna Scanlan as guest performers at the Commonwealth War Graves Foundation’s carol service. 

The carol service includes music by Campkin, Manz, and some well-known tradition carols. “Shining in the Snow,” a commission of Maddie Hunt, will also be performed. The singing is led by the choir of the Guards’ Chapel.

The foundation is the charitable arm of the CWGC. Do take a look at their website and the work they do. For more information and tickets, please visit this page. 

This year, I’ll return to the Somme, France, to sing remembrance ceremonies at the Ulster Tower, Northern Ireland’s national war memorial, and the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, organized by the Somme Association and the Royal British Legion.

In the afternoon, I will join the West Yorkshire Police Band at CWGC Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium, where nearly 12,000 soldiers are buried, 8,369 of whom are unknown. A memorial wall lists the names of the missing soldiers.

The violence in the world today worries me deeply, and I hope that by pausing to take in the cost of war, we may also pause if we feel hatred or anger towards others and instead try to find peaceful solutions.

I was recently interviewed on Dutch national television as part of the series ‘Petrus in het Land’ about my work singing for remembrance and veterans. I also sang “Danny Boy.”

uring the interview, I told the story of John Sleep, who insisted on attending the German remembrance ceremony in the Netherlands each year near to where he was shot and injured by a German tank. John believed that without reconciliation there could be no peace, and he encouraged other British War veterans to attend German remembrance ceremonies. He also supported the Monument of Tolerance.

I was grateful for the chance to share John’s ideas about the importance of remembrance and the role it can – and should – play in understanding the privilege of living in peace.

Even though I have been visiting the Somme to sing remembrance for nearly a decade, I still feel tremendous sorrow when I see the gravestones and names of the missing. For each name and for each grave there must surely have been families and whole communities of grieving people back home.

This year, on the anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, I led the singing at the Royal British Legion’s ceremony at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, a huge monument that is lovingly in the care of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. I sang at the Ulster Tower, Northern Ireland’s national war memorial, and at the memorial to the 16th Irish Division in Guillemont.

The Band of the Royal Yorkshire Regiment gave a cracking sunset concert at the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-sur-Mer. It was really wonderful to join them in this spectacular setting to give an uplifting concert and to bring the veterans some cheer.