Devizes has put its heart and soul in to remembering the fallen of WW1 this year. The town’s been strewn with knitted poppies and paper cranes and the outlines of the dead, and last Saturday 189 people, each one with the name of someone’s son pinned to their breast, stood in silence in The Brittox in memory of those from here who fought and died. There’s been Wayne Cherry’s 100 Hours of Remembrance, an act singularly responsible for educating a generation of the town’s children (and some adults) about The Great War, last week St. Mary’s shook to the sound of ‘The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace’, and Sunday morning saw more people in the church than ever there was at Christmas. As the last post sounded at the War Memorial, the crowd stretched all the way back to the Town Hall. People have knitted. Grown men have cried. Children have asked questions. It’s been about community. It’s been about grief. It’s been emotional.

And then there was ‘For King and Country’ in St. John’s on Sunday afternoon; a lively and eclectic programme of music and words performed by The Devizes Town Band (under the musical direction of Sharon Lindo), the choir of St. John’s and the Devizes Children’s Choir, with a selection of poems, letters, and local anecdotes read by WW1 characters Allie Winchcombe, Chris Smith, and John Winterton from The Wharf Theatre, vigorous compering from Lewis Cohen, and evocative songs sung by Jenni Scott and the impossibly cool George Wilding.

The church was packed again. Wayne was there. The Mayor was there. The Royal British Legion were there. Claire Perry was there. And, on the screens that lined the walls, interspersed with live footage of the singers and musicians, in black and white and sepia and mud, the men of The Great War were there to hear their tale told from beginning to end.

It started with a music hall medley and ‘Farmer’s Boy’, the quick march of the Wiltshire Regiment, and then on to Act One, ‘Recruitment and Deployment’, which began with Asquith’s Declaration of War, and included jingoistic poetry and the Slavic Women’s Farewell, Albinoni’s mournful Adagio, the tale of a soldier’s arrival in Codford (‘more sheep than girls in the village’), ‘Roses of Picardy’, and ‘My Little Dugout in the East’, a poem discovered in the belongings of Sapper Jim Chapman after his death in 1968, and sung for the first time by Chris Smith. Also in Act One was ‘Dartmoor 1912’, a moving account of animals in the war, hero pigeons, dogs, and bears that drank beer at The Bustard.

Act Two, ‘Reconciliation and Remembrance’ kicked off with ‘Oh, It’s a Lovely War’, followed by, amongst other things, poems by Sassoon and Sondheim, the soft sound of children singing ‘Silent Night’ in English and German, a Wiltshire Regiment officer’s account of the Christmas truce, and the spirited ‘Tiger Rag’. Allie Winchcombe read Vera Brittain’s poem ‘Perhaps’, and then ‘In Flanders Fields’ was read, followed by a musical interpretation of the poem that wove the Last Post together with Land of Hope and Glory.

Towards the end Sharon Lindo and George Wilding stood at the altar, she on the violin and he on the guitar, and performed Mark Knopfler’s ‘Piper to the End’. Then Wayne Cherry and Loz Samuels of DOCA were thanked for all the work they have done to make the centenary of the Armistice so special, and little Freya Love recited her work, ‘A Poem for Remembrance’.

It hit just the right note, this show. Poignant and affectionate rather than downright sad. One can become weary of grief, and there has been so much of it in the air. It was uplifting, and I enjoyed the local references and hearing the accounts of the Canadian and American soldiers who found themselves in Wiltshire during the war. The band and choirs sounded great, the little children were unfeasibly cute, and we all got to sing along to ‘Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines’ together. Lovely.

Sometimes when I sit in St. John’s I imagine the sound of the trains arriving at Devizes station and leaving for war. I imagined it again as I shared in the warm community experience and beautiful tribute to the fallen that was ‘For King and Country’. They gave their lives that we should be able to hear the sweet songs of children today.

‘If you weren’t there, you could never know’ – Siegfried Sassoon ‘You will never leave our hearts’ – Freya Love