This year not only does Armistice Day fall at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month but also of the eleventh year somehow giving it an extra poignancy. Indeed this year we are also commemorating 90 years of the Royal British Legion which works so hard to provide help and support to service people whether currently serving their country or having done so in the past.
The annual Poppy Appeal is probably the best known of the Royal British Legion’s charitable activities and the support that the Poppy Appeal receives is self-evident by the vast numbers of people who wear a red poppy during the first two weeks of November. Every broadcaster and television personality can be seen with this instantly recognisable symbol of remembrance pinned to their lapel and so it should be. We should never forget the staggeringly enormous sacrifices that ordinary men and women have made to enable us to lead our extraordinarily comfortable lives: men and women who usually had no choice but to go to war not just to protect their own generations but also generations to come.
We are now, in the 21st Century, many generations removed from the first Armistice Day in 1919 yet still reaping the benefits of the colossal sacrifices made on our behalf by millions of people. Thousands of whom would either never live to have children or who would never see their own children grow up let alone the descendants of those children – us. We should not forget either the multitudes of women who kissed their men goodbye never to see them again and in so doing kissed away their dreams of a future filled with a happy marriage blessed by children.
While the poppy is a visible symbol of Remembrance Day the two-minute silence allows people to stop what they are doing wherever they are at 11am on November 11th and remember all those who have fought in the line of duty. This simple mark of respect began on the very first anniversary of the end of the First World War after much concern was expressed as to how the devastation that had taken place during the four years of war – the “war to end all wars” – could possibly be commemerated. King George V was not convinced that it would be possible to mobilise the whole country into two minutes of silence at exactly the same time, but Edward Honey, who had suggested the idea was adamant that two “silent minutes of national remembrance” would help a shattered people to find “new strength, hope and faith in the morrow”.
History has taught us that the First World War was not after all the “war to end all wars” and Mr Honey knew better than the king as we continue to find solace in his idea while ceasefires come and go.
So it is fitting for us all to stop whatever we are doing this Friday at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year and remember, in a private act of remembrance, all those who have fought, and are fighting, to keep us in the lives to which we have become accustomed – none surely can be as hellish as those on the front line of a war zone.