'Remember our Child' Thanksgiving Memorial Service - Coventry

19 May 2019, 16.00

Coventry Cathedral, Coventry

PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE TO 19 May 2019 at 4 pm.

Revised date, due to the Midlands “Velo” event, which is closing many roads in and around Coventry.

This annual service at Coventry Cathedral will be held on 19 May 2019. All parents who have lost children, as well as their wider families and friends are most welcome to attend. We are delighted that The Revd. Canon Simon Stephens, O.B.E.,founder of The Compassionate Friends, will be the speaker this year in our charity's Jubilee Year and look forward to his message for us.

During the service the names of all of the children will be remembered; there will also be an opportunity for names to be added to the list immediately prior to the start of the service. Year by year, new families join us, and it is a particular feature of this Service that we share a common experience and are able to strengthen and support one another, simply by being together. We hope that you will be able to join us as, in the context of music by the Cathedral Choir, we remember, give thanks and light candles for all of our children.

All are most welcome to attend. There is plenty of room as the Cathedral seats 1000.

Our charity was founded in 1969 by The Reverend Canon Simon Stephens O.B.E., then a young chaplain in Coventry Hospital. Canon Stephens brought together . Two couples - Joe and Iris Lawley, whose son Kenneth was killed in a road traffic accident, and Bill and Joan Henderson, whose son Billy died from cancer - were made aware of each other by Simon Stephens while their sons lay dying in hospital and, finding comfort and support from sharing their grief, decided to offer this to others similarly bereaved.