GWENT'S dwindling band of Second World War veterans marched to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Royal British Legion County branch, the military swagger in their step mocking the passing years.

There was solemn remembrance for the hundreds of thousands British soldiers, sailors and airmen who died in two world wars and a dozen smaller conflicts since but there was also cheerfulness, and joyful celebration and thanks for the ongoing work of the Royal British Legion.

Civic leaders, MPs, AMs and members of the cadet services packed St Woolos Cathedral to hear the Dean of Monmouth, the Very Reverend Dr Richard Fenwick, deliver an address which took as its theme the passing of history.

"At school we learned that history was a matter of dates, but you and I know that history is made by people, in the last century and this, often people who are engaged in war.

"It was out of the activities of the history-makers that the British Legion, later the Royal British Legion was born, the national organisation in 1921 and the Gwent branch two years after that.

"We know that there will never be a war to end all wars just as there will never really be a land fit for heroes, so long as history continues to be made. That history has been made in two world wars, in Korea and Malaya, and more recently the Falklands conflict and the Gulf wars.

"These wars have been fought to defend the Western way of life to which Britain has every right. So long as men serve in wars there will be a need for the Royal British Legion which last year alone spent £40 million relieving hardship and distress."

The service of commemoration and thanksgiving for 80 years of the Royal British Legion in Gwent ended with a reading of the Kohima Epitaph by John Smith, a member of the RBL Risca branch and chairman of the South Wales Borderers Old Comrades.

Standards paraded for the service, and afterwards through Newport city centre, included those of the Newport, Blackwood, Tredegar, Risca, Abercarn, Abertillery, Blaen-avon and Machen branches of the Royal British Legion. The Gwent County standard was borne by Lyn Short, of Bedwas.

Other standards included Newport Royal Air Forces Association, Gwent branch of the Merchant Navy Assoc-iation and the Air Training Corps.