PEOPLE turned out in force in Devizes on Saturday to remember the fallen as a ceremony to honour the 189 soldiers whose names appear on the town's war memorial.

Royal British Legion secretary Wayne Cherry, who has been carrying out 100 hours of remembrance as personal salute to commemorate the centenary of Armistice of November 11, 1918, organised the ceremony.

He had urged people to join in saying: "Our intention is to line both sides of the Brittox from top to bottom and mark the remembrance for an hour, which it seems is a small price to pay for the freedom we all enjoy today.

"You will be making a public statement that you care enough to mark this event personally to thank our fallen heroes for the sacrifice they made."

And he was not disappointed with the turnout as people wore badges with the names of the 189 servicemen and some family members also carried photographs.

People were not put off by controversy which was sparked last week when army veteran Brian Rollinson labelled silhouettes of fallen soldiers in The Brittox as inappropriate and disgusting.

Many people took to social media to say they could understand the personal upset caused to Mr Rollinson, who suffers from post traumatic stress after serving in Northern Ireland, but most felt the cut-out figures bearing poppies were a fitting tribute.

One said: "There is real history in this. We can not ignore that, it happened so we need to remember and respect that. Which Devizes has done honourably in my opinion."

Another said: "I think Devizes should be very proud and humbled by all of this WW1 remembrance activity. Well done to all those involved. Fantastic effort."

While another wrote: "Love it or hate it...at least Devizes is doing something to remember." And someone who had helped create the figures said: "People of all ages got involved in this and it was really lovely to get young youths involved in something and not just doing things they shouldn't."

But a woman from a military background said: "I found it heart breaking and in bad taste."

On Saturday everyone was united in their pride of the Devizes fallen. The large gathering observed a two minutes silence and then the Last Post was played by Kelvin Nash.

Musician Andrew Hurst made his own contribution after the main event by playing suitable songs and then gave money donated to him Mr Cherry's collection for the Royal British Legion.