'Bloody Sunday' invite

He told the Sentinel he will not, however, be taking part in the march, which the relatives of those who died in the city on January 30, 1972, have revealed will be their last.

Last year, Dr Latimer, in conjunction with the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Rt Rev Ken Good, and the Methodist President, Rev Paul Kingston, attended a special outdoor service the day after the publication of the long-awaited report by Lord Saville, which exhonorated all those who had been killed almost four decades ago.

At that particular service a symbolic gesture of connection was made by the leading clergymen, when they presented a miniature model of the 'Hands Across the Divide' statues to the relatives of the dead, and spoke to and prayed with the families.

Asked how he felt at receiving an invitation to the service, Dr Latimer said: "It perhaps made me think the networking I have been doing over the past six months with Declan McLaughlin and John McCourt in the Bogside Brandywell Trust is contributing to the building of trust and understanding.

"Every opportunity that succeeds in bringing our polarised communities closer together so that we can identify those things that connect us, such as hurt and pain and loss - these opportunities have to be grasped for they will lead us to progressively experience reconciliation and transformation for all our citizens," he said. "Given the vulnerable location of First Derry on the Walls above Free Derry corner I am anxious to do everything I can to prepare the way for moving my congregation safely back to Upper Magazine Street, so that we can be perceived as friends and neighbours, and that our sacred space can become a shared space.

"Joining with Fr Michael Canny, from the Longtower Church and the Bloody Sunday Families for the eccumenical service at the end of the month, is another small step along that road," the Presbyterian Minister said.

Reflecting on his recent secondment to Afghanistan, where he served as a Minister to the British Army stationed in the war zone, Dr Latimer said the time he had spent relating to "the relentless convoy of badly-broken bodies" arriving back to Camp Bastion had helped him to "slightly better empathise with both Catholic and Protestant people all over the Northwest and beyond, who are hurting".

While acknowledging that "it was most reassuring for a number of our city's hurting families and their relatives to listen to Prime Minister Cameron last June helpfully summarise the content of Lord Saville's long awaited Bloody Sunday report", nevertheless he stressed that "a great many people from the Unionist/Protestant/Loyalist tradition whose pain and hurt needs to be sympathetically heard and sensitively managed" also exist in the City.

He added: "While sadly there is no magic wand that can be waved to suddenly make all things new, it is reasonable to believe that the road to reconciliation and transformation will be enhanced whenever, as a society, we see how the hurt of Catholics, Protestants, Nationalists, Republicans, Unionists and Loyalists is equally injurious and that all traumatised people have the same opportunities to have their hurt and loss acknowledged and the same help in coming to terms with their respective experiences."