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

[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.