Period silence

[FamilyWiggs]

Sorry - off topic, but worthy.

Make the 2 minute silence No1 this weekend and help our service people too - all for just a quid!

http://www.silentsingle.com/Store/DII-46-5-2+minute+silence.html

 

[Feltwell]

Today, I wished for the ground to swallow me up.

Our main office is directly opposite a fire station. I come out of my office to find all the men in the main office sat at their desks, and every woman stood at the windows looking out.

"Blimey, the firemen must be looking particularly handsome today" announces I in a loud voice. I get "Shhh!" and a scowl in response.

I'd completely missed that it was 11am. And the firemen were performing a drill in dress uniform in due respect. Just to make it slightly more embarrassing, I was of course wearing my poppy.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Oh dear!

Your pennance is to click the link and buy the single for a quid. :wink:

 

[Flyfisher]

Is it just my memory or is there a more general awareness of remembrance these days? I can remember the remembrance Sundays, of course, but I don't recall shops, businesses and other public places observing a 2 minute silence. Also, we never had school trips to the WW1 battefields and cemeteries, but FF junior's school organised annual trips - and a jolly good thing too.

About ten years ago, my mother gave me her Grandfather's WW1 campaign medal together with a large bronze (I think) medal about 4-inches in diameter and the letter that was sent out to the next-of-kin of fallen soldiers. I was able to trace him via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and found he was killed on 30th November 1917, aged 36. He was only a private but I presume he was relatively old as he had been called up towards the end of the war after most of the younger men had already been called up. Like many (most?), he was never found or identified but is commemorated on the walls of Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium.

Soon after finding all this, I took my Mother and FF junior on a day trip to Tyne Cot; three different generations of his descendents. I don't think of myself as particularly sentimental but I found it impossible to keep a dry eye while walking through the cemetery. You can't see all the names in these photos, but they're all there and we did find him, well, his name anyway.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Is it just my memory or is there a more general awareness of remembrance these days? I can remember the remembrance Sundays, of course, but I don't recall shops, businesses and other public places observing a 2 minute silence. Also, we never had school trips to the WW1 battefields and cemeteries, but FF junior's school organised annual trips - and a jolly good thing too.

About ten years ago, my mother gave me her Grandfather's WW1 campaign medal together with a large bronze (I think) medal about 4-inches in diameter and the letter that was sent out to the next-of-kin of fallen soldiers. I was able to trace him via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and found he was killed on 30th November 1917, aged 36. He was only a private but I presume he was relatively old as he had been called up towards the end of the war after most of the younger men had already been called up. Like many (most?), he was never found or identified but is commemorated on the walls of Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium.

Soon after finding all this, I took my Mother and FF junior on a day trip to Tyne Cot; three different generations of his descendents. I don't think of myself as particularly sentimental but I found it impossible to keep a dry eye while walking through the cemetery. You can't see all the names in these photos, but they're all there and we did find him, well, his name anyway.

I'd agree that, as time goes on, we pay more attention to Remembrance than 20 or 30 years ago. - My Mum certainly remembers everything coming to a standstill when she was a schoolgirl in the early 50s, but it had dropped away by my time.
The bronze medal sounds like a "Dead Man's Penny"
http://collections.iwm.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.992
There are so many of them...

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I haven't checked but I heard that Ancestry.com have opened up their WW1 records to free access for a week.

 

[CatherineB]

Perhaps there is a higher level of remembrance because we have more soldiers involved in higher profile conflicts, and also because the media plays a huge role in everything nowadays?

With Iraq and Afghanistan, and all the media attention given to each British death out there, not to mention the Help the Heroes campaign, etc, etc, it is not surprising that we are more aware of the sacrifice that soldiers are making than we were, 20-30 years ago, when we had "just" the Falklands conflict as a current day reference.

I think it's a good thing. Anything to prevent the children of today growing up to think that armed conflict is an easy option...

(Feltwell, if it's any consolation, I also had to be shushed at the key moment yesterday, when I didn't hear our school bell and carried on talking - luckily only me & 2 others in the school office, though...)

 

[worms]

I thought the practice of a silence on the 11th itself in UK rather than only on Remembrance Sunday was re-introduced about ten years ago by the Government? I can't find any reference to this on Google, though.

 

[Flyfisher]

The bronze medal sounds like a "Dead Man's Penny"

Quite a substantial 'penny' at 12cm diameter, but you're absolutely right.



"Dead Man's Penny" shown with his British War Medal and British Victory Medal.
RIP

 

[robgil]

I dont understand how civilian deaths never get a mention, can we not spare 2 minutes for the 7000 or so innocent men , women and children who died in Afghanistan since 2006? They very very rarely get a mention in the press and the MOD seem very reluctant to release any information on them, its as if they dont matter.