SERVICEMEN and women past and present who have bravely fought for our country were remembered a week early on Sunday.

Ealing Mayor John Gallagher and mayoress Pauline Melson laid a wreath at Acton Cemetery War Memorial in Park Royal Road.

They then joined the Deputy Lord-Lieutenant for Ealing, Robert Leader, other councillors, past mayors and freemen at Acton Care Centre, on the site of former Acton Hospital.

The hospital, in Gunnersbury Lane, has long been considered a living, working war memorial even after the building of the memorial in Acton Cemetery and its conversion into a care centre.

An early service has been held there for decades, so that it does not clash with the main events on Remembrance Sunday.

Mr Gallagher said: “It’s very important to continue the tradition of an early Acton remembrance.

“The care centre is still honouring the dead by serving the living.”