Annual service pays tribute to Edith Cavell

Norfolk nurse and First World War heroine Edith Cavell was remembered at a special service at Norwich Cathedral on Saturday 10 October. The brave Norfolk nurse helped more than 200 soldiers escape from occupied Belgium during the First World War and for this she paid the ultimate price and was executed by the Germans on October 12 1915.

Nurse Cavell, who was from Swardeston, is buried at Life’s Green, outside the east end of the Cathedral, close to St Saviour’s Chapel, and every year a Remembrance Service takes place beside her grave.

At the 11am service on Saturday, the Dean of Norwich, the Very Revd Jane Hedges, said: "As we gather here, we remember and give thanks for a woman of great courage and fortitude. We give thanks for the care that she exercised to those in great need.

In this time of pandemic, we hold in our prayers all those whose vocation is to support the health, healing and wellbeing of others, and most especially those who are nurses in our surgeries, hospitals, care homes and in our armed forces."

The Lord Mayor of Norwich, Vaughan Thomas, and the Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk, Philippa Taylor, were among those to lay wreaths at the service along with representatives from the Embassy of Belgium in the United Kingdom, The Royal Corps of Signals, The British Red Cross and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Nurses League.