The Last Post Ceremony at The Menin Gate in Ypres

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Today we're at the Menin Gate in RA, a place that's iconic with remembrance of the First World War. That's because here at 8:00 p.m. every single day they host the last post ceremony. Today we're at the Minneating Opra and we're going to learn about the last post ceremony.

[00:00:38]So today we're at the Mening Gate in RA, a memorial that holds the names of more than 54,000 men who have no known grave killed within the RA salient area. Well, at 8:00 p.m. every single day here, there is an iconic ceremony of remembrance, the last post ceremony, where bugers play here at 8:00 p.m. and they play the last post. Well, today we're going to have a look around and then later on this evening we've got something really exciting that we're going to be a part of. Now, originally when this act of remembrance started here, the buglers were members of the local fire brigade. And in fact, I believe the buglers who do the ceremony today still have to be honorary members of that fire brigade here in Epra. Well, 8:00 p.m. every single day, we have this ceremony, paying our respects to the thousands of men, more than 54,000 men named on this memorial. And as part of that ceremony, people will get invited or have the opportunity to lay a wreath.

[00:01:37]It's not something you can just turn up and do. Has to be arranged in advance.

[00:01:41]And we have had the honor of being invited to do that tonight. So myself and Mrs. Sambles, my wife, we're going to go and lay a wreath tonight to pay our respects to the men here on the memorial. something which we're honored to do and actually really excited to be part of that as well as a little nervous because certainly feel a pressure um when you're going to be part of a ceremony like that. I've seen it done a lot of times here. I've seen some of my friends be part of that ceremony, but I've never actually done it myself. So, that's going to be tonight. Before then, let's just talk a little bit more about the memorial here. So, the Mening Gate is one of the numerous memorials to the missing across the Western Front. Now, next year 2027, as we move into the 110th anniversary of the battle uh of third battle of Epes, battle of Passanddale, I'm going to be doing a lot more videos around April, and we're certainly going to do some more videos telling the stories of some of the men who are named here on the memorial.

[00:02:33]Today though, this is about the last post association and that last post ceremony. So, it's happened every single day, like we said, since 1928. That means we are well above 30,000 times this ceremonyy's been done here. The only time when that stopped was during World War II. So in 1940, the Germans moved in and occupied Epri during World War II. And that meant the ceremony here had to stop. I believe they did actually ask about whether or not they would be allowed to carry on during that period of time. But the German common in charge of here um decided that that wasn't going to be appropriate because this of course was a memorial to soldiers who fought for British and the Allies during World War I. Um there's no German soldiers named here on the memorial and so it was stopped. Now during that period of time the ceremony still took place. It actually took place at the Brick Brookwood cemetery uh in Surrey not far from where I live. We've made videos about that here on the channel before. Now as soon as the occupation of RA ended literally on the evening that it ended in 1944. You could still hear gunshots of fighting on the edge of town. The guys moved back in here and started that ceremony again. And it's continued every single night since that point.

[00:03:58]Now, the reason we've been invited to be part of the ceremony tonight is because I have a friend uh Yuri who volunteers with the Last Post Association. He works here as a ceremonial assistant. And in fact, we've got the opportunity to have a chat with him. He's going to tell us a little bit more um about what the Last Post Association do and a little bit more about what goes on here as part of that ceremony. So, we're going to jump over to Yuri now who's going to talk to us about some of that. So, we're here with Yuri who is a ceremonial assistant here with the Last Post Association. So, Yuri, just I guess tell us a little bit about what is the Last Post Association?

[00:04:32]What is it that you guys do? Well, the Last Post Association is an organization who take cares of the daily act of remembrance here in Eper uh at the Manning Gate. We do this since 1928.

[00:04:46]So almost 100 years that we remember the fallen, the missing in action here behind me. Uh so almost 100 years that we do that.

[00:04:56]>> And what is it, if you don't mind me asking, that motivates you personally to want to be a part of this? What is it that got you to come and do this? Well, before I was uh a volunteer at the project coming world remember me. So that was a project where people could come and make a statue out of clay uh here in the ramparts in Eper. So this clay was a mixture of German clay and clay from Eper. And everybody who made such a statue became a godmother or godfather for one of the 600,000 victims that fell on Belgian soil. So that was for 4 years and then it was over. But I knew a few people uh at the last post association, some buglers because our kids went to the same school and so they said yeah we need somebody who speaks a few languages who is young and uh so yeah so then uh yeah I applied as we can say and uh yeah it's now more than 6 years.

[00:05:48]>> More than 6 years you've been doing this for you have any idea how many ceremonies you've done?

[00:05:52]>> No no in the beginning it was we work we were a week on a week off. Uh but now because we are a little bit underststaffed um we are approximately between 21 days and 24 25 days a month uh here at the Mening Gate.

[00:06:05]>> Wow. Thank you and thank you for telling us the um the sort of bits of detail about it and thank you for letting us be a part of it today. It's been >> it's my pleasure >> for myself and uh and Gemma and Mr. Sambles. It's been really good. So thank you very much.

[00:06:16]>> It's my pleasure guys. Always welcome.

[00:06:18]>> Okay. So you don't often see me dressed in anything other than just a t-shirt and a cap really. But today there's no cap. There's no t-shirt. Got my slightly smarter card cardigan on because myself and Mrs. Sambles are heading down to the mening gate to be part of the last post ceremony. I'm honored to do that.

[00:06:36]Obviously, we're going to film as much of it as we can to share that with you guys. I've got my friend Sand from Sand VK History. [snorts] Uh, and he is going to be helping us out film a couple little bits. Hopefully, we can share that with you. Right, let's get down to the Menate.

[00:06:58]of thank you ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this daily ceremony. Please keep silent and do not applaud during or after the ceremony. Thank you.

[00:07:12][clears throat] >> [music] >> Wow.

[00:07:56][music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [bell] >> Wow.

[00:09:12][music] [music] Thank you. [music] >> [music] [music] >> church.

[00:09:42][music] [music] Hallelujah.

[00:09:54][music] Heat. Heat.

[00:10:01][music] [music] >> [music] >> Okay, so it is the morning after the next morning now and I hope you guys enjoyed that opportunity to see some of the ceremony. and you just want to come back here to the Mening Gate [music] um just to walk around and in fact um late last night about 11:00 after the ceremony we took the opportunity to walk the mening gate just cuz it's a beautiful place at night and again it's quieter this morning um where we laid the wreath is just down um just down here I've just come up to the higher section on the ramparts to have a little look around and to film this piece for us. [gasps] So look I hope you guys enjoyed that. Um thank you so much to Yuri for helping us be part of that ceremony. If you'd like to find out a little bit more about the Last Post Association, and I really would urge you to do that, I'm going to link the website in the description below so you can go and check it out. If you did enjoy this video, do me a favor, do all the YouTube stuff right here on the screen. I'm not going to ask you to support the channel on this video because if you would like to support somebody, I would urge that to be the last post association for this video.

[00:11:16]And there are ways that you can do that you can find through the website. In the meantime, from here at the Mining Gate after a fantastic service last night and again there'll be one tonight and so on and so on and so on. Sadly, we won't be here cuz we are going home. But from today at the mini gates, I will see you on the next video.