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Pause and Remember
Because they deserve your thoughts
Today, the 11th of November, at 11 o’clock, people all over Britain stopped what they were doing and kept silent for two minutes. This is Armistice Day, the day, month and hour on which the Great War, the First World War, the “war to end all wars”, ended.
The custom of the Two-Minute Silence originated in Cape Town, South Africa and was instituted by the then Mayor, Sir Harry Hands, on 14th May 1918. Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, a noted South African author, politician and businessman wrote to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Milner, describing the custom and explaining that it had spread to other places. Milner then wrote to Lord Stamfordham, Private Secretary to King George V, who put the matter before the King. On 5th November 1919, the King put the suggestion to the War Cabinet that a Two Minute Silence be held across the Empire at 11 am on the 11th November. This was accepted, and the King released a press statement on the 7th, which was published in The Times and cabled around the world. This established the custom, which has continued, with a greater or lesser degree of public participation, ever since.
In certain places, the Silence is a formal ceremony in which a bugler sounds The Last Post, the Exhortation is read, the Silence is held, and then the bugler sounds The Rouse. But for most of us, it is just…
