Remembrance Day

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Remembrance Day is commemorated at 11 am on the eleventh day of the eleventh month as this was the time for the armistice that ended the Great War in 1918. Since the Cenotaph was created in 1920 a ceremony has been held there every year on Remembrance Sunday. This year it takes place on Sunday the 14th. Today a simple two minutes silence will occur throughout the United Kingdom when most, but not all, will stand silent for two minutes in remembrance. All war dead will be remembered, not just our own. The twentieth century saw two major world wars leaving possibly seventy million dead, a Cold War which left another fifty or so million deceased, plus the usual smaller conflicts in various places and for a variety of real or imagined slights. Natural disasters and pandemics add to the death rate of the century. Iraq, that needless war, Afghanistan and often ignored conflicts in various places continue today. Death claims many even as we stand in silence for two short minutes. This commemoration will not end war, human nature will see to that, but it may lessen it, and more importantly ensures the lost are not forgotten. 


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