Ninety years to the minute after the guns fell silent on the Western Front a poignant ceremony was repeated in Canterbury Cathedral.

Members of The Queen’s Own Buffs Association from all parts of Kent were on parade on Tuesday for the turning the page ceremony in the Warriors’ Chapel.

The ceremony dates back to the 1920s, since when a page in The Buffs’ (Royal East Kent Regiment) book of life, containing the names of members of the regiment killed in the Great War, has been turned every weekday.

Further books commemorating those who died during the Second World War while serving in The Buffs and their allied regiment, The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, were subsequently added.

The Queen’s Regiment and the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment also now have their books of life there.

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The veterans stood in silence as the Lord Lieutenant of Kent, Allan Willett, himself a former officer of The Buffs and now the Honorary Colonel of the 3rd Battalion, Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, turned a page in the Great War book.

Pages were turned in the Second World War book by Queen’s Own Buffs’ Association president Col Crispin Champion, in The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada book by Maj Peter White, and The Queen’s Regiment page was turned by Col Mike Ball.

A wreath was laid by Mr Willett and others were laid on behalf of the regiments.

Afterwards the Lord Lieutenant said: “It was a good turn-out of old comrades and a wonderful occasion for Kent. People want to show their gratitude and this is a way of saying thank-you.”