Commonwealth Day at RAF Marham

At 1100 hours on Monday 13th March RAF Marham raised The Commonwealth of Nations Flag of Peace to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Commonwealth Charter by Her Late Majesty The Queen, a charter based on friendship, loyalty and the desire for freedom and peace.

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 independent and equal sovereign states. It is home to 2.4 billion citizens, and includes some of the world’s largest, smallest, richest and poorest countries spanning five regions.

The Commonwealth Day Proclamation was read by Able Rating Akhmed, whose day job is an engineer on the F-35B Lightning. RAF Marham Station Commander, Group Captain Wigglesworth gave Commonwealth Day Greetings and talked about his family links to a number of the Commonwealth Countries before the flag was raised. Once the flag was raised City of Norwich Pipe Band Piper, Geoff Taylor, who had previously served at RAF Marham, played the Highland Cathedral on his bagpipes, a favourite tune of The Late Queen Mother.

Petty Officer Bolatiki, from Logistics Support Squadron, finished off the ceremony with a reading of The Affirmation to the Commonwealth. After the event guests made their way to the Chaplaincy Centre where an Asian fusion of foods was being served by chef AS1 Mughal. AS1 Mughal said “I previously served in the Army where a number of cultures were brought together so now I am in the Royal Air Force I wanted to showcase my culture at RAF Marham through my cooking. Today was the perfect opportunity to do this. I am still under training so it was great to use my skills today and see everyone coming together and enjoying my food.”

Petty Officer Joseph, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, said

”RAF Marham has a number of service personnel at the base representing different countries of the Commonwealth and their different cultures. It was great today to show our support to all those backgrounds and cultures by raising the Commonwealth Flag.”