Dear families, relatives, friends, and all who have walked this road with us,

When I last wrote to you, in the spring, I wrote about an absence. I said that within the 4th Parachute Brigade the 10th and the 156th had been given their places — a stone to touch, a plaque to trace, a point on the map where a relative might whisper, "He was ours." And I said that the 11th Battalion still lacked such a place. It felt, I wrote, like an open wound in memory.

I write now with different news. The place is no longer absent. It is coming.

I am proud to tell you that the Melton Mowbray Town Estate, which holds the War Memorial Gardens in trust for the people of Melton, has unanimously approved our proposal to place a memorial to the 11th Parachute Battalion within those Gardens — in the formal memorial area, close to the Roll of Honour, in a setting of quiet dignity. The men of the 11th will at last have their place among the monuments of the town where, in 1944, they lived, trained, married local girls, and from which they left for Arnhem.

The memorial is a bespoke bench, made entirely of metal so that it may endure. It carries the Battalion's insignia, the twin Pegasus, poppies, and the words we hold to — Utrinque Paratus. It is already being made by skilled hands in Grantham. When you sit on it, you will sit with them.

We intend to unveil the memorial on Thursday 12 August 2027. The date is chosen with love. It is the birthday of Corporal William "Bill" Larder — the longest-lived veteran of the Battalion, father of our director Jan, and the inspiration for everything we have done. It seems only right that the men should be honoured on the birthday of one of their own.

Please treat that date as a firm intention. We will confirm the arrangements as they settle, and there is much still to plan — but we wanted you, of all people, to be among the first to know, and to be able to hold the day in your diaries. You have been part of this from the beginning.

I write to you this evening from Oosterbeek. Jan, William, Johanna and I are here for the Arnhem commemorations, and tonight, before the Arnhem 1944 Fellowship, I have shared this news for the first time. It felt right that a memorial born on both sides of the North Sea should first be spoken of here, on the ground where the men landed, in the same days of September that they did — and that you, our families and friends, should hear it from us on the very same evening, and not from a screen.

As ever, if you have a photograph, a name, a story — however small — that can give one of these men a face, we should be honoured to receive it at gerrit@rememberthexith.org. And if you are able to help us meet the cost of the memorial and its care, that too helps more than I can say. But today I ask for nothing except that you share in our gladness. After all the silence, there will be a place to stand.

With my deepest respect, and on behalf of all the directors,

Lieutenant-Colonel (Retd) Gerrit Pijpers OBE
Chairman, Remember The XIth CIC