Lest we forget
We have all seen red poppies being sold for the last few weeks to mark Armistice Day, also known as Remembrance Day and Veterans Day.
The flower was chosen because the fields in Flanders were seen to be covered in poppies in the spring of 1919, as indeed they have been every spring since, and this has been taken as being symbolic of the blood that was shed.
Every year on the 11th November it is marked in some way by many formerly allied nations around the world. In South Africa and Malta it is more commonly known as Poppy Day and it is a national holiday in France and Belgium
Although originally instituted after the terrible toll of human lives on all sides during the First World War the central aim of remembering those killed in battle has been extended to cover other conflicts, from World War II onwards. The actual date when ceremonies of remembrance are carried out in the UK has been moved to the second Sunday in November, Remembrance Sunday.
In Poland, 11th November 1918 is celebrated as Independence Day, the date on which Poland became reunited, having been divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria for 123 years.
The sale of poppies in the UK started in 1921 and has taken place every year since then. The proceeds of sale are used to support war veterans.
This year The Royal British Legion have released a Silent Single and video
The Prime Minister, Thom Yorke, Andy Murray, David Tennant and Mark Ronson are amongst a host of celebrities and sports stars featured in the video.
At the first two minutes silence in London in 1919 The Manchester Guardian reported:
‘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.’
