Wick Seafarers Memorial ‘a fitting place for reflection’
The Seafarers Memorial in Wick was described as a fitting place for local people to reflect on those lost at sea after a Remembrance Sunday service was held there for the second year in a row.
“It’s the right place for it. It’s quite a solemn and peaceful area to remember people in,” said Willie Watt, chairman of the voluntary group behind the ambitious project.
The memorial, created by Alan Beattie Herriot for the Seafarers Memorial Group, was officially opened in May 2023 after a five-year campaign to raise more than £100,000 for a sculpture honouring all those lost at sea from or in the WK registration area.
A ceremony was held at the Braehead statue on Remembrance Sunday for the second year in a row and will become an annual fixture.
Mr Watt laid a wreath in his capacity as Vice-Lieutenant of Caithness.
“This is our second Remembrance Sunday at the Seafarers Memorial,” he said afterwards. “It’s great that it is getting used because that is what it’s there for – to give people a place where they can reflect and remember.
“A lot of people have been lost at sea from this area – a lot of families have been affected.”
Mr Watt pointed out that the Seafarers Memorial had also featured in the first National Fishing Remembrance Day in May this year. It is a new nationwide commemoration of those who have lost their lives while working in the fishing industry.
Introductory remarks were made by Mike Coupland, of the Caithness branch of the Merchant Navy Association. Pipe Major Leslie Campbell, of Wick RBLS Pipe Band, played a lament and Kevin Stewart, chaplain of the Wick, Canisbay and Latheron branch of Legion Scotland, conducted the short service.
Mr Stewart said: “We stand here today by the sea, at this sacred memorial, to remember those who lived and worked upon these waters and who never returned to shore.
“We honour their courage, their dedication and the sacrifices they made in the course of duty and livelihood.”
Mr Stewart spoke of “the power and beauty of the sea” but also “its great mystery and might”.
He described the memorial as “a place of peace, reflection and hope”.
Earlier, at the Remembrance Sunday service in St Fergus Church, an HMS Exmouth wreath was laid on the communion table by church elder John Cormack, local contact for the HMS Exmouth Association, and Jane Byrnell, from Fleet Hampshire (1940) Association, who lost her grandfather when the Exmouth was sunk by a U-boat off Noss Head in January 1940.
