November is the time of the year when red poppies are worn in memory of those who sacrificed their lives during wars. Remembrance Day is also known as Poppy Day, because it is traditional to wear a red poppy. (Why a poppy? Visit this link: http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/remembrance/poppy.htm) Red poppies are sold by the Royal British Legion, a charity dedicated to helping war veterans. At 11am on November 11th, 1918 the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years continuous warfare. This is a special day set aside to remember all those men and women who were killed during the two World Wars and other conflicts.
On Remembrance Sunday, which is usually the Sunday nearest to 11 November, special services are held at war memorials and churches all over Britain. A national ceremony takes place at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. The Queen lays the first wreath at the Cenotaph. Wreaths are layed beside war memorials by companies, clubs, and societies. People also leave small wooden crosses by the memorials in remembrance of a family member who died in war. The Last Post is traditionally played to introduce the two minute silence in commemoration ceremonies; usually played on a bugle. In military life, The Last Post marks the end of the day and the final farewell. The First Two Minute Silence in London (11th November 1919) as reported in the Manchester Guardian, 12th November 1919:
"The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect.
The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition.
Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of 'attention'. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still ... The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain ... And the spirit of memory brooded over it all."
"A Pittance of Time" is a song/video written by Terry Kelly. It's worth your time to view it.
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