Education Featured Mossley News Youth

Tameside falls silent to honour the fallen

Gary Carter November 11, 2026

TAMESIDE fell silent to remember the fallen as a school honoured one of its own.

Mossley Hollins held a Remembrance Service as Corporal Joseph Etchells of 2nd Battalion of The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was close to people’s hearts.

Mossley Hollins High School honoured one of its own, Corporal Joseph Etchells, at its remembrance service around the tree planted in his memory.
Pupils were among those to lay wreaths.

Representatives from the establishment the 22-year-old attended and the area he called home gathered around a memorial tree on Armistice Day, Wednesday, November 11.

Cpl Etchells became the 186th serviceman to be killed in Afghanistan on July 19, 2009, and as speakers told how: “He never forgot where he came from.”

Dignitaries joined members of the school in laying wreaths at the tree planted in his memory.

Christine Lyness MBE of Mossley Town Team did so as fellow members attended, while head boy and girl, Nico Ovenden-Edwards and Erin Gower, joined local PCSO Karl Lisic on behalf of Greater Manchester Police and members of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service.

Dignitaries joined the school’s pupils, staff and governors at the Armistice Day event.
The emergency services were among those to pay their respects.

Two pupils from years seven, eight, nine and 10 laid crosses as the entire school looked in respectfully.

Pupils gathered and paraded in uniforms of the army, RAF, Scouts and other organisations they are part of.

The school’s brass band performed, and a two-minute silence and playing of The Last Post was impeccably observed after pupils Alex Evans, Heidi Oliver, Persha-Mai Cummings, Isabelle Cliff and Lexi O’Mara read passages including In Flanders Fields.