A SERVICE of remembrance for members of the military buried in a Worcester cemetery was made even more poignant when the mother of Private Jason Williams paid her respects.

Members of the Royal British Legion gathered yesterday in a corner of the city’s Astwood Cemetery where British and foreign servicemen are buried.

Linda Williams’s 23-year-old son Jason, the most recent Worcester soldier to be killed in action, is buried in the special military section of the cemetery.

The service was led by Worcester RBL branch chairman Allan Poyner and involved the Sea Cadets and the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regimental Association Worcester branch.

Poppy crosses were laid on the graves and a minute’s silence held before wreaths were laid at the Astwood Road war memorial.

Mr Poyner said: “This service was going to be a lot more raw because of Private Jason Williams, this is going to change the tone of the whole event, as it is in our memories that this has just happened.”

Mr Williams was killed in Afghanistan on August 8 this year after stepping on a roadside bomb while trying to retrieve the body of an Afghan army soldier who had been killed in an earlier attack.

The Canon Paul Tongue said: “We pray for Linda, his family and friends and all who mourn his death.

“We also remember those still serving in Afghanistan to this day.”

The deputy mayor of Worcester, Councillor Mike Layland, said it had been a moving service and it was important to remember those who had died at war.

The service, first held in 1961, came about after the mother of German POW Karl Fuest, who died in Worcester in 1947, wrote to the local RBL asking them to lay a wreath at her son’s grave. Fuest was one of more than 30 POWs who died at Ronkswood Hospital – which was built by the Americans during the Second World War – and are buried in Astwood Cemetery.

Their bodies were laid to rest alongside each other and every year, the weekend following Remembrance Sunday, they are remembered.