Michael Baines to play role in Festival of Remembrance

Michael Baines, a Boys’ Brigade (BB) member from Rochdale is part of a group providing the Carpet Guard at this year's Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday 9 November.

Michael is one of just twelve young BB members, selected from across the United Kingdom who are all working towards or are recent recipients of The Queen's Badge, the Brigade's highest award. The organisation, was chosen to provide this honour to mark the centenary of the award, inaugurated as the King's Badge by His Majesty King George V in 1913.

A further group of thirty is to participate in the commemoration at the Cenotaph the following day.

Steve Dickinson, Chief Executive of The Boys' Brigade said: "This is an enormous privilege for The Boys' Brigade and I am grateful to the Royal British Legion for recognising the contribution made by the movement to the nation over so many years. This will be an occasion the young people will remember for the rest of their lives and they can be justly proud for being selected."

Earlier in the year, HRH The Duke of York presented Queen's Badges to a representative sample of fifty young people at St James's Palace at a ceremony celebrating the award's anniversary.

The Boys’ Brigade itself is celebrating its 130th Anniversary this year and is the UK’s longest-running voluntary uniformed youth organisation. Conceived by William Alexander Smith in Glasgow on 4th October 1883, the BB quickly spread across the United Kingdom before becoming a worldwide organisation by the early 1890s.