Remembrance – Armistice Day

Today is 11 November, later tonight NZ time will be the 91st anniversary, European time, of the Armistice taking effect to end hostilities in World War One – The War to End All Wars as it was initially called by many.

Yet just 21 years later in September 1939 a second global conflict engulfed the world. This was followed by the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War; plus many other conflicts such as the Falklands War, the Malayan Emergency. Now we have the Iraqi conflict and the war in Afghanistan.

My grandfather fought in the First World War, my brother served in the British Army in the 1960s/70s. My father served in the Home Guard as he was born with a slight limp, rendering him unfit for active service, something which I think he regretted all his life.

As a child I remember my parents watching the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance on the TV and then on the Sunday the parade and service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Prior to us having a TV, they listened on the radio.

I can well remember my brother and I playing in the garden and my mother calling out to us to stop playing and be silent as it was 11 o’clock on Armistice Sunday. Indeed, that was probably one of, if not my first, memorie of Remembrance Sunday.

Many years later when working in Bermuda where Armstice Day is still observed on 11 November and is a public holiday, at 11 o’clock traffic would stop as would boats on the harbour as tribute was paid to the fallen. Bermuda was in World War Two a major naval base for the Royal Navy in their fight against the U-Boat menace.

Consequently not only do I pay tribute to the memory of those who fell in service to the Crown, but also to those who still serve today.

The video clip is from a Festival of Remembrance held last Saturday at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The clip covers the Poppy Fall, the Silence and the Ode to the Fallen.