I was at the Cenotaph. There was a good crowd in attendance. Traffic was stopped. Two minutes of silence observed. For me, that 's the significance of the day.
When I was a child ,the sound of Big Ben's chimes were broadcast across the land. at the hour of eleven. a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Children in classrooms.stood beside their desks and bowed their heads for two minutes of silence.
In the streets, traffic stood still .I imagined London's cab drivers cabs leaving cabs and standing to attention beside them.
In Aurora this morning, the sky was clear and brilliant in the morning sunshine. The nice young police officer who let me park in the Canadian Tire parking lot entrance opposite the Cenotaph, told me there was snow north of Newmarket and two inches of the stuff in Barrie.
In the U.K., the sky would most likely be leaden. In year's past, the first of London's pea soup fogs would be drifting through the streets.
We are in the tenth decade of the time when the first Armistices day was marked, to denote a nation's sorrow.
The war was over. Almost an entire generation of men in the flower of youth had been wiped out and loved ones devastated.
Thousands of others, missing limbs or disabled by mustard gas became familiar sights.
Years passed. Life went on. The 1914/18 war was resumed and yet another generation of youth was annihilated during the 1939/45 war, even more horrifying than the first if possible, with new and terrible weapons invented for the purpose.
Whoever thought of people gathering throughout the world to mark two minutes of silence to remember the awful sacrifice, did a good thing.
It has not ended wars.
But it makes us pause and dwell upon those who paid the price.
I,too,love the minutes of silence. But this year
ReplyDeletedifferent radio stations went all out with the trumpets
and that creates chills. Too bad the sound is always
associated war and death. Another new angle this
year was that grade school students went to the
military bases for the services. The grandkid was
there and doesn't like his sax so much.
Like the policeman's funeral in Newmarket, it is refreshing to see all ages thinking.
Not knowing how and when you left Scotland , I
ReplyDeletewondered if bagpipes played a part in your memories ?
Everything I have read about the Scots who came to
North America indicates that the pipes travelled with
them and were present even during the American
Civil War. If this is a disrespectful question I
apologize.
pipes & drums, not a violin in sight. all well on the
ReplyDeletebattle field. So very sad.
Rest easy. If the last bunch were still in, you
ReplyDeletewould have had to pay admission to a non profit
group twice !