Joanna Cherry has laid a remembrance stake in the Westminster Garden of Remembrance. Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle opened the first ever Constituency Garden of Remembrance in New Palace Yard at the House of Commons in 2021 and this year he invited all MPs to dedicate their remembrance stake to someone from within their constituency.
Working with the British Legion, Ms Cherry laid her tribute in memory of Second Lieutenant Ralph Ruthven Wheatley, who was born in Colinton and served in the First World War. Ralph joined as a Cadet aged 17. He studied Law for a year, then joined the Officers Training Corps. He enlisted at the outset of the First World War in August 1914, aged 22.
Ralph served the entirety of the War, but was injured in March 1918, only eight months before the Armistice. He survived to see the end of the War but passed away from his injuries in Colinton in February 1919, aged 26. He is buried in Colinton Parish churchyard.
As in previous years, Joanna will attend, and lay a wreath at, the Heart of Midlothian Football Club’s Remembrance Sunday Service taking place at the Heart of Midlothian War Memorial, Haymarket, on Sunday 12 November 2023.
