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Remembrance
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The two minutes silence I The early years I The national ceremony I The laying of wreaths I The service I The march past

Remembrance - The early years

There was no national ceremony of remembrance for the war dead in 1919. Police officers had to make a way through the crowds for Royal Equerries to lay wreaths from the King and Queen on the steps of the Cenotaph. 'By half- past ten there was a great gathering around the Cenotaph, and the bearers of wreaths had difficulty passing them on to be placed at the base of the column. The mounted police, with great skill and courtesy diverted the crowd from the main road to the foot paths, and here the sightseers stood until the murmur passed down Whitehall, "Lloyd George is coming ". There was a slight rush forward. Few of those assembled saw the Prime Minister with bent white head, carrying a wreath of orchids and roses with a background of laurels… Then the hush came… There is nothing under heaven so full of awe as the complete silence of a mighty crowd'. [4]

1920 saw a ceremony in which the unveiling of the permanent Cenotaph was combined with the funeral of the Unknown Warrior. On that day the first poppy was laid on the Cenotaph by Field Marshal Earl Haig and is now in the keeping of the Green Howards Regimental Museum. 'One hundred thousand wreaths were laid at the newly unveiled Cenotaph by those who had visited the grave of the Unknown Warrior'. [5] The first national ceremony in a form we would recognise, took place on Armistice Day in 1921. After some prodding by the British Legion, the authorities devised a ceremony that remains substantially unaltered to this day. It would include the attendance of the monarch, then as now, in the role of chief mourner, senior military commanders, politicians, High Commissioners of the Dominions, the religious, veterans and the public, with representative contingents of the armed services being drawn up in a hollow square round the Cenotaph. The silence commenced at 11:00 followed by the laying of wreaths, with music being provided by the massed bands of the Brigade of Guards. There followed a short service conducted by the Bishop of London. The ceremony concluded with a march past of the veterans.

The Home Office annually convened a meeting of all the parties involved with the ceremony to review it and consider improvements. As the years went by, the silence established itself as the focus of both the national ceremony and those conducted at local levels. The Times newspaper carried an editorial on 11 November 1937 in which it stated: The heart of today's commemoration lies not in the prayers publicly recited or the hymns sung, but in the two minutes silence. This in each year anyone is free to employ as they will… Thoughts will turn this morning to the future rather than the past; they will concern themselves less with bygone victory that with the hopes of peace to come. Yet to devote the two minutes to silent prayer for peace is certainly not to show forgetfulness for the fallen or ingratitude for their sacrifices. It is on the contrary, to commemorate them in just the way they would wish'.