The Little Mother Ubon Remembrance Ceremony has been attended by OCA members since 2010. Jeanne and Bill Edwards who've attended every one, could not make it because of ill health. They did as they always do, became the first to sign up to an OCA Thailand reunion. A few days before they were due to join us, Bill had an accident and they couldn't attend. So Bill and Jeanne, God speed your good health and our tribute to you, is this picture taken at the 2014 Ceremony.

As a frequent participant in the Ubon Remembrance Ceremony, I'm well aware that the heat builds during the morning and decided to cut our arrival as fine as possible to ensure comfort. The Governor usually arrives at 10:30 so a 10 o'clock departure would give us a contingency of about fifteen minutes to settle into our places. So, the group were told to gather in the hotel lobby at 09:45 and at a few minutes past ten we were on our way. Everything was going well until my phone rang and Noel informed me the 'new' governor had arrived early and we needed to get there as of ten minutes ago.

Great! We'd been asked to provide a big OCA presence as this year was the 10th Anniversary of The Little Mother Ubon Remembrance Ceremony and the organisors wanted to make it special. The Governor arriving before us, could result in serious loss of face on the Ex-Pats part. Things had gone pretty well up to now and here we were in the process of possibly upsetting the Governor. Ah well, nothing we could do about it but accept our garlands of white flowers and take our seats. I would have to be prepared to apologise profusely if we'd upset the Governor.

After discussion with Mike Chapman and a dearth of volunteer's I was left with no option but to lay the OCA wreath. This denied me the opportunity to wander around and take pictures for this report so, grabbing the bull by the horns I decided to face the Governors wrath. Maybe the presence of our Chairman Mike Stanbridge, had broken the ice, but as I offered the traditional Thai greeting of hands clasped together as in prayer, and then gestured for permission to take his picture, the Governor beamed a broad smile for me to record this image for posterity .

As the ceremony neared it's conclusion, the usual melee of picture taking began. (see slideshow for pix) It's at this point that I make a reference to the local government officials and workers from Khok Samran who attended the event by our invitation. We felt a visit to the ceremony would help them understand the part we are playing there and create some kudos for them and us. I also want to show a picture of one of the banners that were specially made to show the part played by Operation and Post Crown in the region fifty plus years ago. Dave 'Satch' Higgins provides the 'eye candy'.

The final images were captured at the ceremony and we then made our way back to the coach. We returned to the Laithong Hotel for a buffet style lunch. We had extended an invitation to Mike Chapman and other ex-pats to eat with us. As it turned out the cuisine was good and the conversations flowed. The remainder of the day was 'freetime' to enjoy Ubon. Thursday 12th November would see us travelling north for our next destination of Mukdahan. On the way we would take in the Buddha at Amnat Cheroen and drive onto the runway at Crown.