Armistice Day

[ladyofastolat]

As far as I remember, Armistice Day itself wasn't commemorated when I was young, with everything happening on Remembrance Sunday instead. I can't remember any two minutes' silences ever happening on a weekday at school. My memory puts the widespread marking of Armistice Day as distinct from Remembrance Sunday as a thing that has only started (or restarted) in the last ten to fifteen years. No-one at work agrees with me - though they don't actively disagree, either, just say they can't remember. Am I misrembering things? The only evidence I've found on a quick online search is that the two minute silence on Armistice Day was stopped during World War 2, so as not to interfere with wartime producation, and moved to Remembrance Sunday, but clearly this isn't relevant to my memories of the 70s and 80s.

Comments

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

No, I definitely agree with you - which means that either we're right, or we've both drifted in from the same parallel universe. Possibly it started with the Falklands War? The First Gulf War? Something that brought the need for remembrance to the public eye more than any other ongoing conflict, anyway. It's a change I approve of, however.

[sally_maria]

That's what I remember as well - in fact I think I remember the silence coming in after I started working in retail (1995), because I have vague memories of starting to do it one year when we didn't before.

(Not working today, obviously, but normally we stop serving and there are notices on the doors asking customers to observe it as well.)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I'm the same. I worked in a public library between 1994 and 2001, and I'm almost certain that we never did a two minute silence when I started, but were doing it by the end. Not that it ever worked that well. You'd always get at least one person come in talking loudly, and very slow to catch on why everyone else was silent.

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I think it started some time in the mid / late 90s, since I can picture it being introduced while I was working in Newman St.

[sally_maria]

Evidence - this article from the Independent in 1996.

I don't remember the tabloid campaign, but then before I started working for a newsagents, I very rarely saw them.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I also think it is a good idea- but at our children's school they are having it at 2pm so that the local veterans can join them.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

When I was young (i.e. at school in the 50s and early 60s) the 2 minutes silence was on the 11th - I personally have always observed the silence on that day since I knew what it meant and why it was chosen. Rememberance Sunday was invented so that it didn't interfere with commerce and industry.

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that Remembrance Sunday is for politicians and the Queen, and Armistice Day is for saying thank-you to your granddad. I doubt that's the official distinction, however.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

It probably varies from place to place. It the small town I was brought up in, the Sunday service was - and still is, according to my mum - a real community thing. It's outdoors, non-denominational and very well attended, whereas a two minutes' silence during a normal work day can often end up pretty meaningless. We did observe it in the office, but the instant 11.02 came round, the phone was ringing again. When I worked in a public library, most of the time was spent not in quiet reflectiong, but silently miming to customers walking through the doors that they should be quiet.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I don't remember this either, until recent years. In Italian schools in the '70s and '80s it wasn't marked as a special occasion. When I was at the Goethe-Institut in Germany in 1988, I learned that 11:11 on 11 November marked the opening of carnival season (Karneval/Fasching), which gives me mental whiplash when I think of it half an hour after two minutes of Remembrance.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Yes, I understand that Germans think (or at least thought) that 11 o'clock on 11 November was a strange time to choose for rememberance when that day was the opening of carnival and was associated with clowns or fools.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

My primary school didn't celebrate Armistice day, but my secondary school very much did, with a parade, service by school war memorial and bloke with trumpet playing the Last Post.

That said, in many ways my school was trapped in a timewarp from the 1930s: if any school in the UK was going to celebrate Armistice day, it would be that one!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

In which case, are you sure it was Armistice Day your school was commemorating, and not the end of the Zulu War? ;-)

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I am sure you and sally_maria are right - 'm sure there was a low-key campaign to restore the two-minute silence on 11 November in the early 1990s. I don't remember it from the 1970s and 1980s at all.

[squonk79.livejournal.com]

I don't remember having anything on Armistice Day either, that came as a surprise when i first started at the museum 7 years ago that they did things on both days (just got back in from the silence, bugler and readings actually!).

All i remember is Remembrance Sunday, because i was in the Brownies and then St. John's Ambulance and therefore had to march to church for many years for it.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, now that you mention it, I remember it with the Brownies. I remember how cold it was standing outside for so long in those short little 1970s Brownies uniforms and no coat.

[squonk79.livejournal.com]

Yes! Though mine was in the 80's, the uniform was the same crappy thin dress. And the Beavers and the Cubs had nice jumpers, we got a bobble hat.

That all changed once i was in St John's, we had nice thick woolly jumpers (like the old military ones with lapels and elbow patches, only black). But we spent most of the parade time dealing with fainters and frozens from other organisations. Oddly, the Boy's Brigade were the worst group for fainters...

[segh.livejournal.com]

You're right, I remember the 90s campaign to re-introduce the silence on the 11th - I think the British Legion started it.
I was extremely pleased. I resent Remembrance Sunday, because it always seems to me to have a subtext: we can't be bothered to keep remembering these old things, so we'll leave it to those sad people who go to Church, they like old things and dead things. As one of those sad people who go to Church, I feel exploited.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

*nods*

And as one of those people (sad or otherwise) who don't go to church I feel excluded.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Really? In most of the places I've lived, I've got the impression that the outdoor Sunday service has been a community thing, with congregations from all denominations there, and with local Guides, Scouts, Brownies, school groups etc. all joining in, as well as lots of non-church goers. The weekday silence, in contrast, everyone observes in their own separate places - schools, offices etc. - and it can often feel pretty meaningless, with normal life carrying on from the dot of 11.02. I'm certainly not anti Armistice Day - not at all - but I think both dates have their advantages, so having both feels like a best of both worlds situation.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That was my impression too - not that I've been to one for years, but most Armistice Day things I've been at have been outside and non-denominational, usually by the war memorial.

I went and forgot the silence today, I was just leaving a shop and nobody said anything, I only realised the time when I started the car and the radio was silent. *is guilty*.

[segh.livejournal.com]

There isn't a lot of community here, alas.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

I think that you're right and I reckon Parrot-Knight is on the money as that fits my recollection too, that remembrance got shoved to Sunday for ease & greed.

I do recall in around 96 ir 97 hearing the gun from Parks whilst working in Park End St so presumably that was afetr the RBL campaign.

I much prefer the way things are done now; the big parade on Sunday and the silence on the 11th because we really have a lot of people to remember. Sunday means those that are still alive and who took part in WW2, Korea, the Falklands, the Gulf war, and the various conflicts, police actions, regime changes etc can parade and remember and be seen and remembered.

According to MiL in Primark they observed the silence today, with the tills closing, staff and customers standing silent for 2 minutes: except for some 'indian people' who carried on obliviously.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I think both have their advantages. Sunday does make sense, since it's still the day when most people aren't at work, so there's time for communities to gather together and commemorate at leisure. The 11th also makes sense, since it reaches into daily life, and thus involves a lot more people, not just those who choose to go to a Sunday commemoration.

From my experience in public libraries, you invariably get some people who carry on obliviously - but without exception, all the worst offenders I've personally experienced have been white British men in their 70s or above, while visiting classes of children are the best. (Which I'm sure is just coincidence, but which I like to bear in mind when I hear rants by other white British men in their 70s about "the youth of today" having no respect.)

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

LOL at your library users, yes I'd bear that in mind too *chortle*. As MiL is not used to all the variations of non-white around our way though they could have been anyone from anywhere and ignoring it because they didn't understand the announcement, were anti-war in general and so mistook the intent, or anti troops in Iraq or Afghanistan because they had family there who had likewise suffered.

I've just finished reading The Honour & the Shame (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Honour-Shame-John-Kenneally-VC/dp/0755316118) by John Keneally VC and at one point in Tunisia he was talking to some German PoWs who said, "When spitfire come we duck, when stuka come you duck, when american bomber come - we both duck."

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I was at a school today at 11.00. Some muffled sniggering during the silence from some people who were loudly reprimanded immediately afterwards by other pupils. I thought that was good.



Strangely, I CAN remember observing a silence during the school day. I can't think what this would have been if it wasn't Armistice Day. My vague memory is that this was one minute, not two though. I cannot explain why one comprehensive school in Wrexham in the 1980s would have uniquely observed the Armistice Day silence, except perhaps that my school was very much into History as a subject. Many of the senior teachers (heads and deputy heads) were history teachers and we even had our own unique GCSE syllabus and exams, so maybe that's it.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

The school I was at observed Armistice Day with full ceremony. I remember (as Deputy Head Prefect) laying a wreath at the school's WW2 Memorial. We certainly had a minute's silence at 11 o'clock.

The school I teach at now is very similar. We had silence in assembly ended by The Last Post, after hearing some readings about various Old Boys in WW1, a sermon from the HM, and three poems (including the new one by Carol Ann Duffy, which was very moving). I also observed two minutes' silence at 11 o'clock by special request of my class (who were in a different assembly, being Yr 8) and this triggered about 10 minutes of respectful discussion of the military links of the students and their families.

[louis-soul.livejournal.com]

I remember their being a huge deal made during my elementary and junior highschool years,all week long the lessons would be tailored to teaching us about the wars.
We would watch special videos and somtimes there would be a guest, a veteran or a Jewish holocaust survivor.
During junior highschool the jrotc would do a special flag service and ceremony in the gym.

Then on t.v. the only program on would be specials about wars etc... for the entire week.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Did you know you can get the 2 minute silence on BBC Radio 4's iplayer? Something to consider, Bunn! - Neuromancer ( I picked File on 4 instead...)