Rifles parade through streets of Sunderland

Sunderland's adopted regiment The Rifles exercises its Freedom of the City with a parade thruogh the city centre

Transcript

00:00 Gideon Mark Wilson from the Rifles. You took the sloot with the Mayor I believe?

00:04 I did. How important is this to maintain your connection with the city?

00:08 It's fundamentally important for us. We've had a long relationship with the city of

00:12 Sunderland, with the County of Durham going back decades if not centuries as a

00:17 regiment and our former regiments, the light infantry, the Durham light infantry,

00:21 we draw very heavily from this area in terms of recruits into the army but

00:26 particularly into the rifle so having a parade like today, the freedom of the

00:31 city of Sunderland exercising that for us is very very important to demonstrate

00:35 that relationship that we have. And there'll be a few people I imagine

00:38 from Sunderland themselves? Many and indeed we had

00:42 references of three rifles, our regular battalion based in Edinburgh, some of

00:46 their soldiers will be from the region and then as importantly eight rifles, our

00:50 reserve battalion with D Company, many of them on parade today, based just up the

00:55 road in Durham. And will you be back next weekend for the remembrance day parade?

01:00 Next weekend is such an important weekend, it's an opportunity for us as a country

01:05 to come together and and remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in

01:10 trying to ensure that our country remains safe and of course today never

01:14 has that been more important. Mayor of Sunderland, Councillor Dorothy

01:18 Truman is here today, she welcomed the rifles on their arrival in the city. How

01:22 pleased are you to be here? I am very honoured and privileged to be here today, I'm always so very very proud of our armed forces.

01:31 And were you pleased to see the numbers of people that turned out? It seems like a very good

01:35 crowd, obviously we couldn't see along Fawcett Street where they marched but I'm always pleased.

01:41 The people of Sunderland always turn out, it's a good turnout for our forces. And obviously we'll be back here next weekend?

01:48 Yes and of course as we know this is the biggest one outside of London and again

01:54 it's always such an honour to be here and to be here as a Mayor is a big honour.