Two minutes' silence marks day of national remembrance

[Blackleaf]

It's 11.08am, which means that Britain has just observed two minutes' silence on Armistice Day...

Armistice Day 2016: Two minutes' silence marks day of national remembrance

BBC News
11 November 2016

A two-minute silence has been observed across the UK to remember the nation's war dead for Armistice Day.

Prince Harry will lay a wreath at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire for the commemorations.

Silence fell at 11:00 GMT to remember servicemen and women killed in battle.

England and Scotland footballers are expected to risk breaking Fifa rules forbidding "political statements" when they wear poppy armbands at their 2018 World Cup qualifying match at Wembley later.

People gathered at war memorials and in schools, offices and other public places across the UK as they paused for two minutes to commemorate the moment the guns fell silent for peace at the end of World War One on 11 November 1918.

Prince Harry will read Rupert Brooke's poem The Soldier, written at the beginning of the war, as part of the service at the National Memorial Arboretum.

Ahead of Friday's events, Prince Harry greets a child at Westminster Abbey in London

Prince Harry will read Rupert Brooke's poem The Soldier, written at the beginning of World War I, as part of the service at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire

England and Scotland are expected to risk breaking Fifa rules forbidding "political statements" when they wear poppy armbands when they play each other in their 2018 World Cup qualifying match at Wembley tonight

He will later join a military parade with several hundred veterans and serving members of the armed forces at the Arboretum, which since 2001 has been a national site of remembrance.

The Prince of Wales will attend a service in Bahrain, where he will lay a wreath and meet senior military representatives and UK veterans working in the Middle East.

The Royal British Legion charity has organised dozens of events for Friday following weeks of fundraising by selling poppies.

Armistice Day is followed by Remembrance Sunday on 13 November, when royals and senior politicians pay their respects at the Cenotaph memorial in London.

Meanwhile, the Football Associations of England and Scotland have said they will let players wear black armbands with poppy emblems despite a warning from Fifa, football's governing body, that doing so could breach rules banning "political, religious or commercial" messages.

However, Fifa has since issued a statement saying it has not banned England and Scotland players from wearing armbands featuring the poppy as has been reported, because it cannot pre-judge what symbols would constitute such a breach.

Both FAs have said they are willing to face any punishment - though they insist it will not come to that.

People are at war memorials across the country for Armistice Day

In events to mark Armistice Day across the UK:

A Field of Remembrance has been planted in the grounds of Westminster Abbey, with separate fields across the country including in Staffordshire, Cardiff, Royal Wootton Bassett, Belfast and Gateshead. The fields feature a combined total of 120,000 tributes of a poppy and personal message to someone who lost their life in service

A service at Edinburgh's Scott Monument will see veterans and politicians lay wreaths, and Edinburgh Castle's gun was fired at 11:00 GMT

Bristol College Green will host 19,240 hand-knitted shrouds to mark each soldier who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme

The Western Front Association holds an annual service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in London where veterans and serving personnel will lay wreaths

Armistice Day

Soldiers and civilians celebrate Armistice Day on 11 November 1918

Armistice Day falls each year on 11 November to mark the day in 1918 when the fighting in World War One was stopped.

The Allies and Germany signed an armistice in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne in France at 05:00. Six hours later, at 11:00, the conflict ceased.

King George V announced that a two-minute silence would be observed in 1919, four days before the first anniversary of Armistice Day. The silence continues to be observed every year on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

Armistice Day 2016: Two minutes' silence marks day of national remembrance - BBC News

 

[JLM]

It's 11.08am, which means that Britain has just observed two minutes' silence on Armistice Day...

Armistice Day 2016: Two minutes' silence marks day of national remembrance

BBC News
11 November 2016

A two-minute silence has been observed across the UK to remember the nation's war dead for Armistice Day.

Armistice Day 2016: Two minutes' silence marks day of national remembrance - BBC News

We observe the Armistice in Canada in exactly the same way.


http://www.duncanjournal.ca/grab-bag/canada-and-world-war-i/

 

[Blackleaf]

We observe the Armistice in Canada in exactly the same way.

They do throughout the Commonwealth, I think.

 

[JLM]

They do throughout the Commonwealth, I think.

Yep.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

In commemoration of the brave men who died for God and St. George. . .


[youtube]8s2MSVaXNqQ[/youtube]

 

[Blackleaf]

In commemoration of the brave men who died for God and St. George. . .

[youtube]8s2MSVaXNqQ[/youtube]

What's brave about putting a bomb in a bin which killed two children or attacking a school bus - which had current First Minister of Northern Ireland Arlene Foster as one if its child passengers - because its driver was a soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment?

At the scene

Sarah Campbell, BBC News, in Trafalgar Square

The sun shone and as 11 o'clock approached, Trafalgar Square filled with people of all ages.

They listened to moving poems and songs and as the The Last Post began at one minute to 11:00 GMT, all traffic was stopped and one of London's busiest squares fell silent.

The Royal British Legion which organised this event has called for a "rethinking" of Remembrance, asking people to think not just of those who died in the two world wars but more recent conflicts as well.

After a bugler signalled the end of the two minutes' silence, the traffic restarted and hundreds of poppy petals were scattered into Trafalgar Square's fountains representing those who sacrificed themselves for others in conflict.

Prince Harry joined a military parade with veterans and serving members of the armed forces at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire which, since 2001, has been a national site of remembrance

Veterans observe a two-minute silence outside the Hall of Memory in Birmingham, West Midlands

Some of the hundreds of hand-painted pebbles at the foot of the Tommy statue in Seaham, County Durham

People gather around the 19,420 figurines that have been laid out on College Green, Bristol

Two minutes' silence is observed in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle

A poppy is placed in a fountain during the Silence in the Square event in Trafalgar Square

Armistice Day 2016: Two minutes' silence marks day of national remembrance - BBC News

 

[petros]

The poppy.

Inspired by a Canadian, first symbolized by an America, turned to tradition and charitu by French eventually adopted as a veterans charity by the English.

UNITY

Significance of poppies
Red poppies are often worn on Remembrance Day. The tradition has its origins in a poem written in 1915 by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a doctor in the Royal Canadian Medical Corps. Lieutenant Colonel McCrae noticed that, despite the devastation caused by the war to towns, farms and forests, thousands of small red poppies began growing everywhere in Spring. This inspired his poem, In Flanders Fields:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The poem was first published in England’s Punch magazine in December 1915 and within months came to symbolize the sacrifices of all who were fighting in World War 1.
In 1918 Moina Michael, an American, wrote a poem in reply, We Shall Keep the Faith, in which she promised to wear a poppy 'in honour of our dead' and so began the tradition of wearing a poppy in remembrance.
It was French YMCA Secretary, Madame Guerin, who in 1918 conceived the idea of selling silk poppies to help needy soldiers.
Poppies were first sold in England on Armistice Day in 1921 by members of the British Legion to raise money for those who had been incapacitated by the war.
The practice began in Australia the same year, promoted by the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia (now known as the Returned & Services League of Australia, or RSL).
In the lead-up to 11 November each year, the RSL sells red poppies for Australians to pin on their lapels, with proceeds helping the organisation undertake welfare work.
Since 1921 wearing a poppy has enabled Australians to show they have not forgotten the more than 102,000 Australian servicemen and women who have given their lives in wars and conflicts during the past 100 years.