One of the important recommendations in the LGBT Veterans Independent Review by Lord Etherton was that there should be a Government funded public memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, to all LGBT people who have served and continue to serve in the military. The Government has agreed to fund a Memorial and has allocated a grant to Fighting With Pride for this purpose.
Critical elements of the project are that the Memorial should reflect the views of the LGBT serving and veteran community and that the memorial will provide an appropriate environment for remembrance, build community pride and raise broader awareness of the LGBT Armed Forces community and their experiences. The Memorial will also aim to improve the health and wellbeing of LGBT Veterans, serving personnel and their families, through active recognition and inclusion of the LGBT Armed Forces community.
The design of the memorial will be done in collaboration by a wide variety of organisations, including those which have the support and respect of veterans who served under and suffered from, the Ban (R17 and R18 of the review report). We are proud to be working with the following on the LGBT Armed Forces Community Memorial:
Royal British Legion, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, National Memorial Arboretum, Office for Veterans Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Stonewall, LGBT Foundation, Women’s Royal Army Corps Association, Help for Heroes, SaluteHer, Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force, SSAFA.
Honorary Art Advisors: Lucy Ash.
Fighting With Pride have now started to engage with the LGBT Armed Forces Community to gather ideas to help design an appropriate memorial. A Steering Group has been established, comprising of individuals from organisations and charities with deep knowledge of memorialisation, together with Veterans and serving personnel.
Regional meetings are planned in Portsmouth, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Blackpool in September to facilitate community involvement and there will also be virtual Townhalls to ensure maximum participation. The plan is to have options from the community consultation, refined by the Steering Group and passed to the Fighting With Pride Board of Trustees in November to enable a design decision to be taken. This will be followed by a transparent tender phase and site preparation, construction with a view to an unveiling ceremony in Summer/Autumn 2025.
Roly Woods has been appointed by the Fighting With Pride Board of Trustees to lead this important project as Memorial Officer, very ably assisted by his Deputy, Kevin Bazeley. You can find out more about the Memorial Team here.
The memorial project continues to run on schedule and we are looking forward to the 24th of June when a group of veterans and serving personnel will meet at the Forge to meet the designers, connect with the memorial in build and be filmed as part of the ongoing process of documenting the memorial progress in advance of its eventual dedication.
Work with MOD and the OVA continues to plan the dedication ceremony at the back end of this year. Unfortunately, we still can’t confirm a date for this event, but we hope to have news soon. The important thing is that the MOD/OVA agree that the focus of the event needs to be on the veterans and serving members of the LGBT+ armed forces community and every effort will be made to maximise their attendance.
After the 24th the next event in our timetable is the groundbreaking at the National Memorial Arboretum on Wednesday, 9th July 2025 at 11:00. This will be a relatively low key event, no big press coverage, where a small number of veterans and serving personnel will meet to symbolically cut the first sod of grass to allow the groundworks to commence.
While this will be low key and there won’t be any of the memorial to actually see, we do appreciate that some may wish to visit the Arboretum to witness this ground breaking and you would be more than welcome too. If you would like to register your attendance to attend, PLEASE CLICK HERE
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