PEOPLE across Bath and North East Somerset and Wiltshire whose loved ones have died during the Covid-19 pandemic are being invited to join an online community service of remembrance.

The Community Remembering Together Service will be broadcast on Wednesday, March 24 at 7pm via the Bath Abbey YouTube channel.

The event is organised jointly by the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust, Dorothy House Hospice Care, Bath Abbey, the SWALLOW charity and Bath and North East Somerset Council.

RUH Lead Chaplain, the Reverend Narinder Tegally, said: “The service is intended to bring together those within the local community, who follow a professed faith or no faith, to remember all those who have died across Bath and North East Somerset, Wiltshire and

Somerset at the RUH, at Dorothy House, in our local care homes and at home since the virus first arrived last year.“As places of worship are closed for communal acts of devotion, the service will be pre-recorded and offered online.

"Not only is this an opportunity for people to remember those who have died during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is also a way for the wider community to be together, to grieve together and support all in the local community who have had their lives significantly changed by it.”

The Community Remembering Together Service will include an address by The Right Reverend Ruth Worsley, Bishop of Taunton; personal stories from two bereaved families; and a reading from Wayne De Leeuw, chief executive of Dorothy House Hospice Care.

There will also be prayers, readings and poetry offered from different faith traditions and none.During the service, people will be invited to light a candle at home, and there will be music by the RUH musician in residence, and Christchurch and Bath Abbey Choirs.

Cara Charles Barks, chief executive of the RUH Bath, will deliver the closing words and there will be a song by SWALLOW - South West Action for Learning and Living Our Way supporting people with learning disabilities.

To watch the service, go to

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSTBxSCyS70_S_ZiPd-DANA