Lest We Forget. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month….

Remembrance Day held on 11 November, is a special day set aside to remember all those men and women who were killed during the two World Wars and all other conflicts since. At one time the day was known as Armistice Day and was renamed Remembrance Day after the Second World War.

Poppies are worn today in remembrance because all along the Western Front during the First World War thousands of poppy seeds lay dormant in the soil. They would have lain there for years to come, but the battles being fought there churned up the soil so much that the poppies bloomed like never before. The most famous bloom of poppies in the war was in Ypres, a town in Flanders, Belgium, which was crucial to the Allied defence. There were three battles there, but it was the second, which was calamitous to the allies since it heralded the first use of the new chlorine gas the Germans were experimenting with, which brought forth the poppies in greatest abundance, and inspired the Canadian soldier, Major John McCrae, to write his most famous poem. This, in turn, inspired the British Legion to adopt the poppy as their emblem.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS.

In Flanders field the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

It is now 90 years since the guns fell silent that morning on the Western Front. How many witnesses remain? They were my father’s generation, as real to me as my parents were themselves. It is strange to think that the First World War will be as remote to my grandchildren as the American Civil War and Boer war is to me.

Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday in November, which is usually the Sunday nearest to 11 November. Special services will be held at war memorials and churches all over Britain and a national ceremony will take place at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London.