Cities and towns come to standstill as people observe two-minute silence at 11am to commemorate those killed in wars
Employees at Lloyd's of London underwriters prepare to observe the Armistice Day two-minute silence. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
People in shops and offices, and in some areas even the traffic, came to a halt for two minutes at 11am to commemorate those killed in the bloody conflicts of the 20th century, on the anniversary of the armistice that ended the first world war.
At war memorials, schools, shopping centres and in the streets, the public stood in silence as the clock struck the exact hour the war ended and the guns fell silent on the western front 93 years ago.
By contrast, the palindromic moment a few minutes later: 11 seconds after 11 minutes past 11 o'clock passed almost unnoticed, even though it only occurs once a century.
In Afghanistan, where the eleventh hour came four and a half hours before Britain, Philip Hammond, the new defence secretary, paying his first visit to British troops there, laid a wreath during a service at Camp Bastion, watched by 3,500 servicemen on parade there.
The latest British casualty of the conflict, Territorial Army private Matthew Thornton from the 4th battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, was killed in Helmand province by an explosive device two days ago: the 385th death among UK personnel there since the war began.
Hammond said: "I regard it as critically important that we're here to show how important it is to us the sacrifice that is continuing to be made. The ceremonies that we will have across Britain on Remembrance Sunday are not just about the war dead from the first and second world wars or even conflicts we've had since but this is about the ongoing sacrifice that people here are making on a daily, weekly basis, that they all live with every day.
"They get up and go out with the possibility that they may be killed or injured in a combat situation and that makes this ceremony here especially poignant. It is now the only place in the world where British troops are in active daily danger and lives are being lost and I think it is a way of showing the value that we at home place on the sacrifice and the dedication and the commitment that people there are showing."
At the Cenotaph in London uniformed guardsmen stood with heads bowed and arms reversed around the memorial, watched by veterans in wheelchairs and military attaches from foreign embassies in London, two days before the Queen leads the national commemoration on Sunday.
In Trafalgar Square celebrities joined the crowd in observing the silence, led by Dan Stevens, the actor whose character in the recent Downton Abbey series experienced a remarkable and dramatically fortuitous recovery from paralysis after being injured in the first world war.
Crowds gathered at the national memorial arboretum in Staffordshire, in city centres across the country and at Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, the small town which held commemorations every time the bodies of servicemen killed in action were repatriated to the local air base at RAF Lyneham.
At Wembley the England football squad – who will now be able to wear poppies on their black armbands during Saturday's international with Spain – broke off training to stand in silence.
The Guardian
At war memorials, schools, shopping centres and in the streets, the public stood in silence as the clock struck the exact hour the war ended and the guns fell silent on the western front 93 years ago.
By contrast, the palindromic moment a few minutes later: 11 seconds after 11 minutes past 11 o'clock passed almost unnoticed, even though it only occurs once a century.
In Afghanistan, where the eleventh hour came four and a half hours before Britain, Philip Hammond, the new defence secretary, paying his first visit to British troops there, laid a wreath during a service at Camp Bastion, watched by 3,500 servicemen on parade there.
The latest British casualty of the conflict, Territorial Army private Matthew Thornton from the 4th battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, was killed in Helmand province by an explosive device two days ago: the 385th death among UK personnel there since the war began.
Hammond said: "I regard it as critically important that we're here to show how important it is to us the sacrifice that is continuing to be made. The ceremonies that we will have across Britain on Remembrance Sunday are not just about the war dead from the first and second world wars or even conflicts we've had since but this is about the ongoing sacrifice that people here are making on a daily, weekly basis, that they all live with every day.
"They get up and go out with the possibility that they may be killed or injured in a combat situation and that makes this ceremony here especially poignant. It is now the only place in the world where British troops are in active daily danger and lives are being lost and I think it is a way of showing the value that we at home place on the sacrifice and the dedication and the commitment that people there are showing."
At the Cenotaph in London uniformed guardsmen stood with heads bowed and arms reversed around the memorial, watched by veterans in wheelchairs and military attaches from foreign embassies in London, two days before the Queen leads the national commemoration on Sunday.
In Trafalgar Square celebrities joined the crowd in observing the silence, led by Dan Stevens, the actor whose character in the recent Downton Abbey series experienced a remarkable and dramatically fortuitous recovery from paralysis after being injured in the first world war.
Crowds gathered at the national memorial arboretum in Staffordshire, in city centres across the country and at Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, the small town which held commemorations every time the bodies of servicemen killed in action were repatriated to the local air base at RAF Lyneham.
At Wembley the England football squad – who will now be able to wear poppies on their black armbands during Saturday's international with Spain – broke off training to stand in silence.
The Guardian
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