The most beautiful, haunting, moment of the ceremony of remembrance at Thiepval on the Somme came when Amelia Stephenson, a nine-year-old pupil at Nottingham Girls High School, sang Amazing Grace on the steps of Sir Edwin Lutyens’s magnificent memorial. She was advertised as singing a duet with Emma Brown, a professional mezzo-soprano and an alumna of the school, but she had the confidence and the power in her voice to sing all three verses on her own to round off a moving series of recitals by British and French schoolchildren. Ms Stephenson was one of six girls from Nottingham, aged 9 to 11, who had won a competition to demonstrate ways in which they embodied the school values of positivity, empathy and resilience.

Source: The Times November 12, 2018 00:02 UTC