The East Midlands Japanese Association together with the Midland Japanese Association, sponsored the Hiroshima Stone Memorial, which was unveiled by H.E. Ambassador Keiichi Hayashi in a ceremony after the service, and was widely covered by representatives of the British and Japanese press. The Ambassador spoke of ‘the evergreen friendship’ between Britain and Japan, and of the part played by wartime reconciliation, of which this memorial was a symbol. He and subsequent speakers, Mr John Graham, Deputy Director General of the Royal British Legion, and Professor Nobuko Kosuge of Yamanashi Gakuin University, also paid tribute to Burma war veteran, the late Philip Malins, who conceived the idea of requesting a stone from the bombed ruins of Hiroshima to be incorporated in a monument dedicated to reconciliation.
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