Armistice Day
At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month we are silent. For two minutes we think of the lives and deaths that war has affected. This idea was introduced shortly before the first anniversary of the Armistice by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick. King George VI, who approved the suggestion, wrote in the national newspapers that ‘there may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all our normal activities’. This silence is held each year, and is a significant event in the national calendar. In the two mute minutes we are able to sharpen our focus on the suffering caused by war, and our silence is also symbolic of the silences left by war.
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