View allAll Photos Tagged observe
OBSERVE Collective
All images are © Copyrighted and All Rights Reserved
germanstreetphotography.com/michael-monty-may/
When was the last time you saw the Milky Way? It's our home, you know... but due to light pollution, it often times goes unnoticed. Nothing humbles quite like the vast magnificence of a star-filled sky.
This image was taken from the tallest mountain on Earth. No, not Everest, that's the highest peak on Earth. Mauna Kea, from its base under the ocean to its peak at over 13,000 feet above sea-level is a perfectly isolated place, far away from light-pollution, on the Big island of Hawaii.
I drove from Kona, where it was a perfectly comfortable 80 degrees. At Mauna Kea's summit, it was a blustery 30 degrees... I am so happy I remembered to bring (*was too lazy to unpack) my gloves and beany from my duffle-bag!
More Hawaiian images to come throughout the month :-)
This is a single-exposure taken with my Canon 40D. ISO 800 at 30 sec at f 2.8. The light is from the nearly half-moon. As you can see, I am above the clouds, so there is very little atmospheric interference.
Prints available at my printshop.
To read more, and find out how I make my images, visit my blog.
I must have seen myself as getting all innovative and edgy here. Very committed, very socialist. It was Tuesday 16th July 1974. I had just returned to Plymouth station after a jaunt around the town ...mainly to buy more film... and had recovered my Hitachi cassette recorder from its left luggage locker. Following a bomb attack by Fenian terrorists these had been out of use for some time, but had lately been reinstated. I was trying to get a few recordings of the famous Western "sound". Most of the results were of execrable quality, wind-rumble being the main problem. D1065 was idling at the platform with a few parcels vans, eventually "running round" and hauling them off to sidings far. Shortly afterwards, finding The Cornishman disappointingly "Peak"-hauled, I hopped aboard the Western-hauled Cornish Riviera Limited, travelling as far as Exeter where I changed for Bristol. I washed my hair that evening.
Observed laying over at Kyleakin on the Isle of Skye in July 1980, this 10 metre Ford R1014 with Duple Dominant Express coach bodywork was operated by Highland Omnibuses and was part of a large fleet of Fords at that time.
The casting manager observes the last heat being processed.
Please like my Facebook Artists page: entropic remnants photography on facebook Also, please visit the Entropic Remnants website, my Entropic Remnants blog, and my Entropic Remnants YouTube page -- THANKS!
May 1978 just outside the US Naval Base at Subic Bay, R.P. Image taken by my late friend Jim Abrisch with his Nikon on Kodak Ektachrome. I'm using my new Canon 1014 Super 8 film movie camera. Young assistant was slightly amused by it all.
Wow, a brief heavy downpour was observed just before we started our Sunday morning worship service! Talk about a good downpour... All this rain was due to a passing strong cold front...
Weather summary and scenario:
After being battered with rain and strong winds the prior week, the Bay Area was again hit with yet another storm system, which arrived Sunday, December 13, 2015. This system came on the heels of a storm that already had struck the region with rain, lightning, strong winds and hail. This next storm had delivered a similar scenario to the San Francisco Bay Area... Additionally, wind advisories were issued for the Bay Area due to wind gusts possibly reaching 40-50 mph. Power outages were also possible during the period. By the way, a very brief power outage actually had taken place during our Sunday morning worship! That was when the strong cold front from this system was passing thru with gusty winds and rains...
Speaking of the weather, our weather here in San Jose, CA was as follows: A frontal system had moved thru. The front was preceded by strong southerly winds accompanying heavy rainfall during the a.m. hours. Spotty t-storms have later occurred in the afternoon due to an unstable airmass behind the passing strong cold front of this system. One decent storm cell had went directly over us while we were stuck in traffic, on the way to Great Mall in Milpitas, CA! That was intense indeed! Windswept heavy rain, hail, thunder and lightning were all observed. Surely, this 3rd winter-like storm in a week had brought more beneficial rain and snow to much of NorCal. Rainfall amounts were to range from 1-2 inches across the North Bay with generally 1/2-1 inch around the rest of the San Francisco Bay Area. For the remainder of the area... a half inch or less was forecast. Also, a strong El Niño could still drench California in the upcoming winter months. Hopefully this rainy season would make a decent dent to our historic drought here!
International Observe the Moon Night 2022
4740 people enjoyed the activity from the main square of Salamanca, Spain. 14 telescopes and 25 volunteers working with the city council, prepared this observation of 3 hours long. You can read the rest of the story and see our photos at the following link. osae.info/documentos_osae/2022/2022_10_01.htm
Designer: Zhao Weiliang (赵渭凉)
1978, January
Observe discipline
Zunshou jilu (遵守纪律)
Call nr.: BG E37/57 (Landsberger collection)
More? See: chineseposters.net
Just don't disturb the master. I was determined to finally finish binding this quilt last night, so I sat down on the couch with it and started working, and before too long I had company. Zappycat crawled into the other end of the quilt and made himself quite comfortable. I guess he gave the quilt his seal of approval.... which also caused me to have to take it out to a "Cat-free zone" for a good session with a lint roller before I present the quilt to its new owner this week.
Taken near the SW Houston.
It was cloudy. Autofocus failed initially until clouds cleared sufficiently. At first I thought I had an equipment failure since I took solar eclipse pictures one week ago with the same lens and camera (www.flickr.com/photos/23326616@N07/albums/72177720311938802).
Temperature was warm. We still have to deal with mosquitos. Picture quality is not as good as equipment capability.
Click twice to zoom in. There is an unexplained dot on the picture. You can see the approximate location by putting the cursor on the picture. You can only see it after zoom in by clicking twice. It is a shinny dot!. This picture is processed from the last picture I took. This dot is at different locations in the earlier pictures. I hope it is not one of those Starlink satellites.
My other Moon photos: www.flickr.com/photos/23326616@N07/albums/72157603957016908
Link to NASA International Observe the Moon Night website.
moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/
2024 International Observe the Moon Night is September 14 2024
Remembrance Sunday, 8 November 2015
In the United Kingdom, Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday in November, which is the Sunday nearest to 11 November, Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. Remembrance Sunday is held to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts.
Remembrance Sunday is marked by ceremonies at local war memorials in most cities, towns and villages, attended by civic dignitaries, ex-servicemen and -women, members of local armed forces regular and reserve units, military cadet forces and uniformed youth organisations. Two minutes’ silence is observed at 11 a.m. and wreaths of remembrance poppies are then laid on the memorials.
The United Kingdom national ceremony is held in London at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Wreaths are laid by Queen Elizabeth II, principal members of the Royal Family normally including the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Earl of Wessex and the Duke of Kent, the Prime Minister, leaders of the other major political parties, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Commonwealth High Commissioners and representatives from the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets and the civilian services, and veterans’ groups. Two minutes' silence is held at 11 a.m., before the laying of the wreaths. This silence is marked by the firing of a field gun on Horse Guards Parade to begin and end the silence, followed by Royal Marines buglers sounding Last Post.
The parade consists mainly of an extensive march past by veterans, with military bands playing music following the list of the Traditional Music of Remembrance.
Other members of the British Royal Family watch from the balcony of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
After the ceremony, a parade of veterans and other related groups, organised by the Royal British Legion, marches past the Cenotaph, each section of which lays a wreath as it passes. Only ticketed participants can take part in the march past.
From 1919 until the Second World War remembrance observance was always marked on 11 November itself. It was then moved to Remembrance Sunday, but since the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1995, it has become usual to hold ceremonies on both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.
Each year, the music at the National Ceremony of Remembrance remains the same, following a programme finalised in 1930:
Rule, Britannia! by Thomas Arne
Heart of Oak by William Boyce
The Minstrel Boy by Thomas Moore
Men of Harlech
The Skye Boat Song
Isle of Beauty by Thomas Haynes Bayly
David of the White Rock
Oft in the Stilly Night by John Stevenson
Flowers of the Forest
Nimrod from the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar
Dido's lament by Henry Purcell
O Valiant Hearts by Charles Harris
Solemn Melody by Walford Davies
Last Post – a bugle call
Beethoven's Funeral March No. 1, by Johann Heinrich Walch
O God, Our Help in Ages Past – words by Isaac Watts, music by William Croft
Reveille – a bugle call
God Save The Queen
Other pieces of music are then played during the march past and wreath laying by veterans, starting with Trumpet Voluntary and followed by It's A Long Way To Tipperary, the marching song of the Connaught Rangers, a famous British Army Irish Regiment of long ago.
The following is complied from press reports on 8 November 2015:
"The nation paid silent respect to the country's war dead today in a Remembrance Sunday service. Leading the nation in remembrance, as ever, was the Queen, who first laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in 1945 and has done so every year since, except on the four occasions when she was overseas.
Dressed in her customary all-black ensemble with a clutch of scarlet poppies pinned against her left shoulder, she stepped forward following the end of the two-minute silence marked by the sounding of Last Post by 10 Royal Marine buglers.
The Queen laid her wreath at the foot of the Sir Edwin Lutyens Portland stone monument to the Glorious Dead, then stood with her head momentarily bowed.
She was joined by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, who was invited to the Cenotaph for the first time to lay a wreath marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by British troops.
Watched by his wife Queen Maxima, who stood next to the Duchess of Cambridge in the Royal Box, the King laid a wreath marked with the simple message, 'In remembrance of the British men and women who gave their lives for our future.'
Wreaths were then laid by members of the Royal Family, all wearing military uniform: Prince Philip; then Prince Andrew, Prince Harry and Prince William at the same time ; then Prince Edward, Princess Anne and the Duke of Kent at the same time.
Three members of the Royal Family laying wreaths at the same time was an innovation in 2015 designed to slightly reduce the amount of time of the ceremony and thereby reduce the time that the Queen had to be standing.
Prince Charles attended a remembrance service in New Zealand.
The Prime Minister then laid a wreath. The Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, appeared at the Cenotaph for the first time. He wore both a suit and a red poppy for the occasion.
His bow as he laid a wreath marked with the words 'let us resolve to create a world of peace' was imperceptible – and not enough for some critics. Yet unlike the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Battle service earlier this year, Mr Corbyn did join in with the singing of the national anthem.
Following the end of the official service at the Cenotaph, a mammoth column more than 10,000-strong (some 9,000 of whom were veterans) began marching along Whitehall, saluting the Cenotaph as they passed, Parliament Street, Great George Street, Horse Guards Road and back to Horse Guard Parade. The Duke of Cambridge took the salute from the column on Horse Guards Parade.
Time takes its inevitable toll on even the most stoic among us, and this year only a dozen World War Two veterans marched with the Spirit of Normandy Trust, a year after the Normandy Veterans' Association disbanded.
Within their ranks was 95-year-old former Sapper Don Sheppard of the Royal Engineers. Sheppard was of the eldest on parade and was pushed in his wheelchair by his 19-year-old grandson, Sam who, in between studying at Queen Mary University, volunteers with the Normandy veterans.
'It is because of my admiration for them,' he says. 'I see them as role models and just have the utmost respect for what they did.'
While some had blankets covering their legs against the grey November day, other veterans of more recent wars had only stumps to show for their service to this country during 13 long years of war in Afghanistan.
As well as that terrible toll of personal sacrifice, the collective losses – and triumphs - of some of the country’s most historic regiments were also honoured yesterday.
The Gurkha Brigade Association - marking 200 years of service in the British Army – marched to warm ripples of applause. The King’s Royal Hussars, represented yesterday by 126 veterans, this year also celebrate 300 years since the regiment was raised.
They were led by General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of Nato and Colonel of the regiment who himself was marching for the first time.
'We are joined by a golden thread to all those generations who have gone before us,” he said. “We are who we are, because of those that have gone before us.' "
Cenotaph Ceremony & March Past - 8 November 2015
Summary of Contingents
Column Number of marchers
B (Lead) 1,754
C 1,298
D 1,312
E 1,497
F 1,325
A 1,551
Ex-Service Total 8,737
M (Non ex-Service) 1,621
Total 10,358
Column B
Marker Detachment Number
1 Reconnaissance Corps 18 Anniversary
2 43rd Reconnaissance Regiment Old Comrades Assoc 10
3 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery Association 60
4 Royal Artillery Association 18
5 Royal Engineers Association 37
6 Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal Association 65 Anniversary
7 Airborne Engineers Association 24
8 Royal Signals Association 48
9 Army Air Corps Association 42
10 Royal Army Service Corps & Royal Corps Transport Assoc 54
11 RAOC Association 18
12 Army Catering Corps Association 48
13 Royal Pioneer Corps Association 54 Anniversary
14 Royal Army Medical Corps Association 36
15 Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers Association 48
16 Royal Military Police Association 100
17 The RAEC and ETS Branch Association 12
18 Royal Army Pay Corps Regimental Association 36
19 Royal Army Veterinary Corps & Royal Army Dental Corps 18
20 Royal Army Physical Training Corps 24
21 Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps Assoc 48
22 Royal Scots Dragoon Guards 30
23 Royal Dragoon Guards 78
24 Queen's Royal Hussars (The Queen's Own & Royal Irish) 12
25 Kings Royal Hussars Regimental Association 126
26 16/5th Queen's Royal Lancers 36
27 17/21 Lancers 30
28 The Royal Lancers 24 New for 2015
29 JLR RAC Old Boys' Association 30
30 Association of Ammunition Technicians 24
31 Beachley Old Boys Association 36
32 Arborfield Old Boys Association 25
33 Gallipoli & Dardenelles International 24
34 Special Observers Association 24
35 The Parachute Squadron Royal Armoured Corps 24 New
36 Intelligence Corps Association 48
37 Women's Royal Army Corps Association 120
38 656 Squadron Association 24
39 Home Guard Association 9
40 British Resistance Movement (Coleshill Research Team) 12
41 British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association 48
42 British Ex-Services Wheelchair Sports Association 24
43 Royal Hospital Chelsea 30
44 Queen Alexandra's Hospital Home for Disabled Ex-Servicemen & Women 30
45 The Royal Star & Garter Homes 20
46 Combat Stress 48
Total 1,754
Column C
Marker Detachment Number
1 Royal Air Force Association 150
2 Royal Air Force Regiment Association 300
3 Royal Air Forces Ex-Prisoner's of War Association 20
4 Royal Observer Corps Association 75 Anniversary
5 National Service (Royal Air Force) Association 42
6 RAFLING Association 24
7 6 Squadron (Royal Air Force) Association 18
8 7 Squadron Association 25
9 8 Squadron Association 24
10 RAF Habbaniya Association 25
11 Royal Air Force & Defence Fire Services Association 30
12 Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Association 30
13 Units of the Far East Air Force 28 New
14 Royal Air Force Yatesbury Association 16
15 Royal Air Force Airfield Construction Branch Association 12
16 RAFSE(s) Assoc 45 New
17 Royal Air Force Movements and Mobile Air Movements Squadron Association (RAF MAMS) 24
18 Royal Air Force Masirah & Salalah Veterans Assoc 24 New
19 WAAF/WRAF/RAF(W) 25
19 Blenheim Society 18
20 Coastal Command & Maritime Air Association 24
21 Air Sea Rescue & Marine Craft Sections Club 15
22 Federation of RAF Apprentice & Boy Entrant Assocs 150
23 Royal Air Force Air Loadmasters Association 24
24 Royal Air Force Police Association 90
25 Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service Association 40
Total 1,298
Column D
Marker Detachment Number
1 Not Forgotten Association 54
2 Stoll 18
3 Ulster Defence Regiment 72
4 Army Dog Unit Northern Ireland Association 48
5 North Irish Horse & Irish Regiments Old Comrades Association 78
6 Northern Ireland Veterans' Association 40
7 Irish United Nations Veterans Association 12
8 ONET UK 10
9 St Helena Government UK 24
10 South Atlantic Medal Association 196
11 SSAFA 37
12 First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteers Corps) 12
13 Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen & Women 48
14 British Nuclear Test Veterans Association 48
15 War Widows Association 132
16 Gurkha Brigade Association 160 Anniversary
17 British Gurkha Welfare Society 100 Anniversary
18 West Indian Association of Service Personnel 18
19 Trucial Oman Scouts Association 18
20 Bond Van Wapenbroeders 35
21 Polish Ex-Combatants Association in Great Britain 25
22 Stowarzyszenie Polskich Kombatantów Limited 18 New
23 Royal Hong Kong Regiment Association 12
24 Canadian Veterans Association 10
25 Hong Kong Ex-Servicemen's Association (UK Branch) 24
26 Hong Kong Military Service Corps 28
27 Foreign Legion Association 24
28 Undivided Indian Army Ex Servicemen Association 11 New
Total 1,312
Column E
Marker Detachment Number
1 Royal Marines Association 198
2 Royal Naval Association 150
3 Merchant Navy Association 130
4 Sea Harrier Association 24
5 Flower Class Corvette Association 18
6 HMS Andromeda Association 18
7 HMS Argonaut Association 30
8 HMS Bulwark, Albion & Centaur Association 25
9 HMS Cumberland Association 18
10 HMS Ganges Association 48
11 HMS Glasgow Association 30
12 HMS St Vincent Association 26
13 HMS Tiger Association 25
14 Algerines Association 20
15 Ton Class Association 24
16 Type 42 Association 48
17 Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service 36
18 Association of WRENS 90
19 Royal Fleet Auxiliary Association 10
20 Royal Naval Communications Association 30
21 Royal Naval Medical Branch Ratings & Sick Berth Staff Association 24
22 Royal Naval Benevolent Trust 18
23 Yangtze Incident Association 24
24 Special Boat Service Association 6
25 Submariners Association 30
26 Association of Royal Yachtsmen 30
27 Broadsword Association 36
28 Aircraft Handlers Association 36
29 Aircrewmans Association 40 Anniversary
30 Cloud Observers Association 10
31 The Fisgard Association 40
32 Fleet Air Arm Armourers Association 36
33 Fleet Air Arm Association 25
34 Fleet Air Arm Bucaneer Association 24
35 Fleet Air Arm Field Gun Association 24
36 Fleet Air Arm Junglie Association 18
37 Fleet Air Arm Officers Association 30
38 Fleet Air Arm Safety Equipment & Survival Association 24
39 Royal Navy School of Physical Training 24
Total 1,497
Column F
Marker Detachment Number
1 Blind Veterans UK 198
2 Far East Prisoners of War 18
3 Burma Star Association 40
4 Monte Cassino Society20
5 Queen's Bodyguard of The Yeoman of The Guard 18
6 Pen and Sword Club 15
7 TRBL Ex-Service Members 301
8 The Royal British Legion Poppy Factory 4
9 The Royal British Legion Scotland 24
10 Officers Association 5
11 Black and White Club 18
12 National Pigeon War Service 30
13 National Service Veterans Alliance 50
14 Gallantry Medallists League 46
15 National Malaya & Borneo Veterans Association 98
16 National Gulf Veterans & Families Association 30
17 Fellowship of the Services 100
18 Memorable Order of Tin Hats 24
19 Suez Veterans Association 50
20 Aden Veterans Association 72
21 1st Army Association 36
22 Showmens' Guild of Great Britain 40
23 Special Forces Club 12
24 The Spirit of Normandy Trust 28
25 Italy Star Association, 1943-1945, 48
Total 1,325
Column A
Marker Detachment Number
1 1LI Association 36
2 Royal Green Jackets Association 198
3 Parachute Regimental Association 174
4 King's Own Scottish Borderers 60
5 Black Watch Association 45
6 Gordon Highlanders Association 60
7 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Regimental Association 12
8 Queen's Own Highlanders Regimental Association 48
9 London Scottish Regimental Association 30
10 Grenadier Guards Association 48
11 Coldstream Guards Association 48
12 Scots Guards Association 48
13 Guards Parachute Association 36
14 4 Company Association (Parachute Regiment) 24
15 Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment 72
16 Royal East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) Past & Present Association 30
17 Prince of Wales' Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians) Regimental Association 24
18 Royal Hampshire Regiment Comrades Association 14
19 The Royal Hampshire Regimental Club 24 New for 2015
20 Royal Northumberland Fusiliers 48 New
21 Royal Sussex Regimental Association 12
22 Green Howards Association 24
23 Cheshire Regiment Association 24
24 Sherwood Foresters & Worcestershire Regiment 36
25 Mercian Regiment Association 30
26 Special Air Service Regimental Association 4
27 The King's Own Royal Border Regiment 100
28 The Staffordshire Regiment 48
29 Rifles Regimental Association 40
30 The Rifles & Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire & Wiltshire Regimental Association 30
31 Durham Light Infantry Association 60
32 King's Royal Rifle Corps Association 50
33 King's African Rifles 14 New for 2015
Total 1,551
Column M
Marker Detachment Number
1 Transport For London 48
2 Children of the Far East Prisoners of War 60
3 First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteers Corps) 24
4 Munitions Workers Association18
5 Evacuees Reunion Association48
6 TOC H 20
7 Salvation Army 36
8 Naval Canteen Service & Expeditionary Force Institutes Association 12 Previously NAAFI
9 Royal Voluntary Service 24
10 Civil Defence Association 8
11 National Association of Retired Police Officers 36
12 Metropolitan Special Constabulary 36
13 London Ambulance Service NHS Trust 36
14 London Ambulance Service Retirement Association 18
15 St John Ambulance 36
16 British Red Cross 12
17 St Andrew's Ambulance Association 6
18 The Firefighters Memorial Trust 24
19 Royal Ulster Constabulary (GC) Association 36
20 Ulster Special Constabulary Association 30
21 Commonwealth War Graves Commission 12
22 Daniel's Trust 36
23 Civilians Representing Families 180
24 Royal Mail Group Ltd 24
25 Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 24
26 The Blue Cross 24
27 PDSA 24
28 HM Ships Glorious Ardent & ACASTA Association 24 Anniversary
29 Old Cryptians' Club 12
30 Fighting G Club 18 Anniversary
31 Malayan Volunteers Group 12
32 Gallipoli Association 18
33 Ministry of Defence 20
34 TRBL Non Ex-Service Members 117
35 TRBL Women's Section 20
36 Union Jack Club 12
37 Western Front Association 8
38 Shot at Dawn Pardons Campaign 18
39 Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes 24
40 National Association of Round Tables 24
41 Lions Club International 24
42 Rotary International 24
43 41 Club 6
44 Equity 12
45 Romany & Traveller Society 18
46 Sea Cadet Corps 30
47 Combined Cadet Force 30
48 Army Cadet Force 30
49 Air Training Corps 30
50 Scout Association 30
51 Girlguiding London & South East England 30
52 Boys Brigade 30
53 Girls Brigade England & Wales 30
54 Church Lads & Church Girls Brigade 30
55 Metropolitan Police Volunteer Police Cadets 18
56 St John Ambulance Cadets 18
57 YMCA 12
Total 1,621
269,885 items / 2,143,689 views
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Good Friday[nb 1] is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of Passover. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Black Friday,[1] or Easter Friday,[2] though the latter properly refers to the Friday in Easter week.
Based on the details of the Canonical gospels, the Crucifixion of Jesus was most likely to have been on a Friday (John 19:42).[3] The estimated year of the Crucifixion is AD 33, by two different groups, and originally as AD 34 by Isaac Newton via the differences between the Biblical and Julian calendars and the crescent of the moon.[4] A third method, using a completely different astronomical approach based on a lunar Crucifixion darkness and eclipse model (consistent with Apostle Peter's reference to a "moon of blood" in Acts 2:20), points to Friday, 3 April AD 33.[5]
According to the accounts in the Gospels, the Temple Guards, guided by Jesus' disciple Judas Iscariot, arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas received money (30 pieces of silver) (Matthew 26:14-16) for betraying Jesus and told the guards that whomever he kisses is the one they are to arrest. Following his arrest, Jesus was brought to the house of Annas, the father-in-law of the high priest, Caiaphas. There he was interrogated with little result and sent bound to Caiaphas the high priest where the Sanhedrin had assembled (John 18:1-24).
Conflicting testimony against Jesus was brought forth by many witnesses, to which Jesus answered nothing. Finally the high priest adjured Jesus to respond under solemn oath, saying "I adjure you, by the Living God, to tell us, are you the Anointed One, the Son of God?" Jesus testified ambiguously, "You have said it, and in time you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Almighty, coming on the clouds of Heaven." The high priest condemned Jesus for blasphemy, and the Sanhedrin concurred with a sentence of death (Matthew 26:57-66). Peter, waiting in the courtyard, also denied Jesus three times to bystanders while the interrogations were proceeding just as Jesus had predicted.
A Good Friday procession in Mumbai by Indian Roman Catholics, depicting the Way of the Cross
In the morning, the whole assembly brought Jesus to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate under charges of subverting the nation, opposing taxes to Caesar, and making himself a king (Luke 23:1-2). Pilate authorized the Jewish leaders to judge Jesus according to their own law and execute sentencing; however, the Jewish leaders replied that they were not allowed by the Romans to carry out a sentence of death (John 18:31).
Pilate questioned Jesus and told the assembly that there was no basis for sentencing. Upon learning that Jesus was from Galilee, Pilate referred the case to the ruler of Galilee, King Herod, who was in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. Herod questioned Jesus but received no answer; Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate. Pilate told the assembly that neither he nor Herod found guilt in Jesus; Pilate resolved to have Jesus whipped and released (Luke 23:3-16). Under the guidance of the chief priests, the crowd asked for Barabbas, who had been imprisoned for committing murder during an insurrection. Pilate asked what they would have him do with Jesus, and they demanded, "Crucify him" (Mark 15:6-14). Pilate's wife had seen Jesus in a dream earlier that day, and she forewarned Pilate to "have nothing to do with this righteous man" (Matthew 27:19). Pilate had Jesus flogged and then brought him out to the crowd to release him. The chief priests informed Pilate of a new charge, demanding Jesus be sentenced to death "because he claimed to be God's son." This possibility filled Pilate with fear, and he brought Jesus back inside the palace and demanded to know from where he came (John 19:1-9).
Antonio Ciseri's depiction of Ecce Homo with Jesus and Pontius Pilate, 19th century
Coming before the crowd one last time, Pilate declared Jesus innocent and washed his own hands in water to show he has no part in this condemnation. Nevertheless, Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified in order to forestall a riot (Matthew 27:24-26) and ultimately to keep his job. The sentence written was "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." Jesus carried his cross to the site of execution (assisted by Simon of Cyrene), called the place of the Skull, or "Golgotha" in Hebrew and in Latin "Calvary". There he was crucified along with two criminals (John 19:17-22).
Jesus agonized on the cross for six hours. During his last 3 hours on the cross, from noon to 3 p.m., darkness fell over the whole land.[6] With a loud cry, Jesus gave up his spirit. There was an earthquake, tombs broke open, and the curtain in the Temple was torn from top to bottom. The centurion on guard at the site of crucifixion declared, "Truly this was God's Son!" (Matthew 27:45-54)
Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin and secret follower of Jesus, who had not consented to his condemnation, goes to Pilate to request the body of Jesus (Luke 23:50-52). Another secret follower of Jesus and member of the Sanhedrin named Nicodemus brought about a hundred pound weight mixture of spices and helped wrap the body of Christ (John 19:39-40). Pilate asks confirmation from the centurion whether Jesus is dead (Mark 15:44). A soldier pierced the side of Jesus with a lance causing blood and water to flow out (John 19:34), and the centurion informs Pilate that Jesus is dead (Mark 15:45).
Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus' body, wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and placed it in his own new tomb that had been carved in the rock (Matthew 27:59-60) in a garden near the site of crucifixion. Nicodemus (John 3:1) also brought 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes, and placed them in the linen with the body, in keeping with Jewish burial customs (John 19:39-40). They rolled a large rock over the entrance of the tomb (Matthew 27:60). Then they returned home and rested, because Shabbat had begun at sunset (Luke 23:54-56). On the third day, Sunday, which is now known as Easter Sunday (or Pascha), Jesus rose from the dead.
[edit]In the Roman Catholic Church
[edit]Day of Fasting
Crucifix prepared for veneration
The Catholic Church treats Good Friday as a fast day, which in the Latin Rite of the Church is understood as having only one full meal (but smaller than a regular meal) and two collations (a smaller repast, two of which together do not equal one full meal) and on which the faithful abstain from eating meat. In countries where Good Friday is not a day of rest from work, the afternoon liturgical service is usually put off until a few hours after the recommended time of 3 p.m.
[edit]Services on the day
The Latin Rite has no celebration of Mass between the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday evening and the Easter Vigil unless a special exemption is granted for rare solemn or grave occasions by the Vatican or the local bishop. The only sacraments celebrated during this time are Baptism (for those in danger of death), Penance, and Anointing of the Sick.[7] While there is no celebration of the Eucharist, it is distributed to the faithful only in the Service of the Passion of the Lord, but can also be taken at any hour to the sick who are unable to attend this service.[8] During this period crosses, candlesticks, and altar cloths are removed from the altar which remains completely bare.[9] It is also customary to empty the holy water fonts in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil.[10] Traditionally, no bells are rung on Good Friday or Holy Saturday until the Easter Vigil.
The Celebration of the Passion of the Lord takes place in the afternoon, ideally at three o'clock, but for pastoral reasons a later hour may be chosen.[11] The vestments used are red (more commonly) or black (more traditionally).[12] Before 1970, vestments were black except for the Communion part of the rite when violet was used.[13] Before 1955 black was used throughout.[14] If a bishop or abbot celebrates, he wears a plain mitre (mitra simplex).[15]
[edit]Liturgy
Communion from the Blessed Sacrament on Good Friday (Our Lady of Lourdes, Philadelphia)
The liturgy consists of three parts: the Liturgy of the Word, the Veneration of the Cross, and Holy Communion.
The Liturgy of the Word, consists of the clergy and assisting ministers entering in complete silence, without any singing. They then silently make a full prostration, "[signifying] both the abasement of 'earthly man,'[16] and also the grief and sorrow of the Church."[17] Then follows the Collect prayer, and the reading or chanting of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9, and the Passion account from the Gospel of John, traditionally divided between three deacons,[18] yet often divided between the celebrant and more than one singer or reader. This part of the liturgy concludes with the orationes sollemnes, a series of prayers for the Church, the Pope, the clergy and laity of the Church, those preparing for baptism, the unity of Christians, the Jewish people, those who do not believe in Christ, those who do not believe in God, those in public office, those in special need.[19] After each prayer intention, the deacon calls the faithful to kneel for a short period of private prayer; the celebrant then sums up the prayer intention with a Collect-style prayer.
The Adoration of the Cross, has a crucifix, not necessarily the one that is normally on or near the altar at other times, solemnly displayed to the congregation and then venerated by them, individually if possible and usually by kissing the wood of the cross, while hymns and the Improperia ("Reproaches") with the Trisagion hymn are chanted.[20]
Holy Communion is done according to a rite based on that of the final part of Mass, beginning with the Our Father, but omitting the ceremony of "Breaking of the Bread" and its related chant, the "Agnus Dei". The Eucharist, consecrated at the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday is distributed at this service.[21] Before the reform of Pope Pius XII, only the priest received Communion in the framework of what was called the "Mass of the Presanctified", which included the usual Offertory prayers, with the placing of wine in the chalice, but which omitted the Canon of the Mass.[14] The priest and people then depart in silence, and the altar cloth is removed, leaving the altar bare except for the cross and two or four candlesticks.[22]
[edit]Stations of the Cross
The Way of the Cross, celebrated at the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday
Rome: canopy erected at the "Temple of Venus and Rome" during the "Way of the Cross" ceremony
In addition to the prescribed liturgical service, the Stations of the Cross are often prayed either in the church or outside, and a prayer service may be held from midday to 3.00 p.m., known as the Three Hours' Agony. In countries such as Malta, Italy, Philippines, Puerto Rico and Spain, processions with statues representing the Passion of Christ are held.
In Rome, since the papacy of Blessed John Paul II, the heights of the Temple of Venus and Roma and their position opposite the main entrance to the Colosseum have been used to good effect as a public address platform. This may be seen in the photograph below where a red canopy has been erected to shelter the Pope as well as an illuminated cross, on the occasion of the Way of the Cross ceremony. The Pope, either personally or through a representative, leads the faithful through meditations on the stations of the cross while a cross is carried from there to the Colosseum.
In Polish churches, a tableau of Christ's Tomb is unveiled in the sanctuary. Many of the faithful spend long hours into the night grieving at the Tomb, where it is customary to kiss the wounds on the Lord's body. A life-size figure of Christ lying in his tomb is widely visited by the faithful, especially on Holy Saturday. The tableaux may include flowers, candles, figures of angels standing watch, and the three crosses atop Mt Calvary, and much more. Each parish strives to come up with the most artistically and religiously evocative arrangement in which the Blessed Sacrament, draped in a filmy veil, is prominently displayed.
[edit]Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ
El Greco's Jesus Carrying the Cross, 1580
The Roman Catholic tradition includes specific prayers and devotions as acts of reparation for the sufferings and insults that Jesus suffered during his Passion on Good Friday. These Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ do not involve a petition for a living or deceased beneficiary, but aim to repair the sins against Jesus. Some such prayers are provided in the Raccolta Catholic prayer book (approved by a Decree of 1854, and published by the Holy See in 1898) which also includes prayers as Acts of Reparation to the Virgin Mary.[23][24][25][26]
In his encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor on reparations, Pope Pius XI called Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ a duty for Catholics and referred to them as "some sort of compensation to be rendered for the injury" with respect to the sufferings of Jesus.[27]
Pope John Paul II referred to Acts of Reparation as the "unceasing effort to stand beside the endless crosses on which the Son of God continues to be crucified".[28]
[edit]Malta
The Holy Week commemorations reach their peak on Good Friday as the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the passion of Jesus. Solemn celebrations take place in all churches together with processions in different villages around Malta and Gozo. During the celebration, the narrative of the passion is read in some localities. The Adoration of the Cross follows. Good Friday processions take place in Birgu, Bormla, Għaxaq, Luqa, Mosta, Naxxar, Paola, Qormi, Rabat, Senglea, Valletta, Żebbuġ (Città Rohan) and Żejtun. Processions in Gozo will be in Nadur, Victoria (St. George and Cathedral), Xagħra and Żebbuġ, Gozo.
[edit]The Philippines
In predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, the day is commemorated with street processions, the Way of the Cross, the chanting of the Pasyon, and performances of the Senakulo, a Passion play. Church bells are not rung and Masses are not celebrated. Some devotees engage in self-flagellation and even have themselves crucified as expressions of penance despite health issues and strong disapproval from the Church.[29]
After three o'clock in the afternoon (the time at which Jesus is traditionally believed to have died), the faithful venerate the cross in the local church and follow the procession of the Burial of Jesus. The image of the dead Christ is then laid in state to be venerated, and sometimes treated in accordance with local burial customs.
In Cebu and other Visayan Islands, people usually eat binignit and biko as a form of fasting.
[edit]In Eastern Christianity
Icon of the Crucifixion, 16th century, by Theophanes the Cretan (Stavronikita Monastery, Mount Athos)
Byzantine Christians (Eastern Christians who follow the Rite of Constantinople: Orthodox Christians and Greek-Catholics) call this day "Great and Holy Friday", or simply "Great Friday".
Because the sacrifice of Jesus through his crucifixion is commemorated on this day, the Divine Liturgy (the sacrifice of bread and wine) is never celebrated on Great Friday, except when this day coincides with the Great Feast of the Annunciation, which falls on the fixed date of March 25 (for those churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar, March 25 currently falls on April 7 of the modern Gregorian Calendar). Also on Great Friday, the clergy no longer wear the purple or red that is customary throughout Great Lent,[30] but instead don black vestments. There is no "stripping of the altar" on Holy and Great Thursday as in the West; instead, all of the church hangings are changed to black, and will remain so until the Divine Liturgy on Great Saturday.
The faithful revisit the events of the day through public reading of specific Psalms and the Gospels, and singing hymns about Christ's death. Rich visual imagery and symbolism as well as stirring hymnody are remarkable elements of these observances. In the Orthodox understanding, the events of Holy Week are not simply an annual commemoration of past events, but the faithful actually participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Each hour of this day is the new suffering and the new effort of the expiatory suffering of the Savior. And the echo of this suffering is already heard in every word of our worship service - unique and incomparable both in the power of tenderness and feeling and in the depth of the boundless compassion for the suffering of the Savior. The Holy Church opens before the eyes of believers a full picture of the redeeming suffering of the Lord beginning with the bloody sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane up to the crucifixion on Golgotha. Taking us back through the past centuries in thought, the Holy Church brings us to the foot of the cross of Christ erected on Golgotha, and makes us present among the quivering spectators of all the torture of the Savior.[31]
Great and Holy Friday is observed as a strict fast, and adult Byzantine Christians are expected to abstain from all food and drink the entire day to the extent that their health permits. "On this Holy day neither a meal is offered nor do we eat on this day of the crucifixion. If someone is unable or has become very old [or is] unable to fast, he may be given bread and water after sunset. In this way we come to the holy commandment of the Holy Apostles not to eat on Great Friday."[31]
[edit]Matins of Holy and Great Friday
The Byzantine Christian observance of Holy and Great Friday, which is formally known as The Order of Holy and Saving Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, begins on Thursday night with the Matins of the Twelve Passion Gospels. Scattered throughout this Matins service are twelve readings from all four of the Gospels which recount the events of the Passion from the Last Supper through the Crucifixion and burial of Jesus. Some churches have a candelabrum with twelve candles on it, and after each Gospel reading one of the candles is extinguished.
Good Friday cross from the Catholicon at Holy Trinity Monastery, Meteora, Greece
The first of these twelve readings John 13:31-18:1 is the longest Gospel reading of the liturgical year, and is a concatenation from all four Gospels. Just before the sixth Gospel reading, which recounts Jesus being nailed to the cross, a large cross is carried out of the sanctuary by the priest, accompanied by incense and candles, and is placed in the center of the nave (where the congregation gathers), with a two-dimensional painted icon of the body of Christ (Greek: soma) affixed to it. As the cross is being carried, the priest or a chanter chants a special antiphon, Sēmeron Kremātai Epí Xýlou:
Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross (three times).
He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the Heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who in Jordan set Adam free receives blows upon His face.
The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails.
The Son of the Virgin is pierced with a spear.
We venerate Thy Passion, O Christ (three times).
Show us also Thy glorious Resurrection.[32][33]
During the service, all come forward to kiss the feet of Christ on the cross. After the Canon, a brief, moving hymn, The Wise Thief is chanted by singers who stand at the foot of the cross in the center of the nave. The service does not end with the First Hour, as usual, but with a special dismissal by the priest:
May Christ our true God, Who for the salvation of the world endured spitting, and scourging, and buffeting, and the Cross, and death, through the intercessions of His most pure Mother, of our holy and God-bearing fathers, and of all the saints, have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and the Lover of mankind.
[edit]Royal Hours
Main article: Royal Hours
The next day, in the forenoon on Friday, all gather again to pray the Royal Hours, a special expanded celebration of the Little Hours (including the First Hour, Third Hour, Sixth Hour, Ninth Hour and Typica) with the addition of scripture readings (Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel) and hymns about the Crucifixion at each of the Hours (some of the material from the previous night is repeated). This is somewhat more festive in character, and derives its name of "Royal" from both the fact that the Hours are served with more solemnity than normal, commemorating Christ the King who humbled himself for the salvation of mankind, and also from the fact that this service was in the past attended by the Emperor and his court.
[edit]Vespers of Holy and Great Friday
The crucified Christ, just before the Deposition from the Cross and the placing of the Epitaphios in the Sepulcher.
The epitaphios ("winding sheet"), depicting the preparation of the body of Jesus for burial
In the afternoon, around 3 pm, all gather for the Vespers of the Taking-Down from the Cross, commemorating the Deposition from the Cross. The Gospel reading is a concatenation taken from all four of the Gospels. During the service, the body of Christ (the soma) is removed from the cross, as the words in the Gospel reading mention Joseph of Arimathea, wrapped in a linen shroud, and taken to the altar in the sanctuary. Near the end of the service an epitaphios or "winding sheet" (a cloth embroidered with the image of Christ prepared for burial) is carried in procession to a low table in the nave which represents the Tomb of Christ; it is often decorated with an abundance of flowers. The epitaphios itself represents the body of Jesus wrapped in a burial shroud, and is a roughly full-size cloth icon of the body of Christ. Then the priest may deliver a homily and everyone comes forward to venerate the epitaphios. In the Slavic practice, at the end of Vespers, Compline is immediately served, featuring a special Canon of the Crucifixion of our Lord and the Lamentation of the Most Holy Theotokos by Symeon the Logothete.
[edit]Matins of Holy and Great Saturday
The Epitaphios being carried in procession
The Epitaphios mounted upon return of procession
On Friday night, the Matins of Holy and Great Saturday, a unique service known as The Lamentation at the Tomb (Epitáphios Thrēnos) is celebrated. This service is also sometimes called Jerusalem Matins. Much of the service takes place around the tomb of Christ in the center of the nave.
A unique feature of the service is the chanting of the Lamentations or Praises (Enkōmia), which consist of verses chanted by the clergy interspersed between the verses of Psalm 119 (which is, by far, the longest psalm in the Bible). The Enkōmia are the best-loved hymns of Byzantine hymnography, both their poetry and their music being uniquely suited to each other and to the spirit of the day. They consist of 185 tercet antiphons arranged in three parts (stáseis or "stops"), which are interjected with the verses of Psalm 119, and nine short doxastiká ("Gloriae") and Theotókia (invocations to the Virgin Mary). The three stáseis are each set to its own music, and are commonly known by their initial antiphons: "Life in a grave", "Worthy it is", and "All the generations". Musically they can be classified as strophic, with 75, 62, and 48 tercet stanzas each, respectively. The climax of the Enkōmia comes during the third stásis, with the antiphon "Ō glyký mou Éar", a lamentation of the Virgin for her dead Child ("O, my sweet spring, my sweetest child, where has your beauty gone?"). The author(s) and date of the Enkōmia are unknown. Their High Attic linguistic style suggests a dating around the 6th century, possibly before the time of St. Romanos the Melodist.
At the end of the Great Doxology, while the Trisagion is sung, the epitaphios is taken in procession around the outside the church, and is then returned to the tomb. Some churches observe the practice of holding the epitaphios at the door, above waist level, so the faithful most bow down under it as they come back into the church, symbolizing their entering into the death and resurrection of Christ. The epitaphios will lay in the tomb until the Paschal Service early Sunday morning. In some churches, the epitaphios is never left alone, but is accompanied 24 hours a day by a reader chanting from the Psalter.[citation needed]
The Troparion (hymn of the day) of Good Friday is:
The noble Joseph, when he had taken down Thy most pure Body from the tree, wrapped it in fine linen, and anointed it with spices, and placed it in a new tomb.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
The angel came to the myrrh-bearing women at the tomb and said:
Myrrh is fitting for the dead, but Christ has shown Himself a stranger to corruption.
Remembrance Sunday, 8 November 2015
In the United Kingdom, Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday in November, which is the Sunday nearest to 11 November, Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. Remembrance Sunday is held to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts.
Remembrance Sunday is marked by ceremonies at local war memorials in most cities, towns and villages, attended by civic dignitaries, ex-servicemen and -women, members of local armed forces regular and reserve units, military cadet forces and uniformed youth organisations. Two minutes’ silence is observed at 11 a.m. and wreaths of remembrance poppies are then laid on the memorials.
The United Kingdom national ceremony is held in London at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Wreaths are laid by Queen Elizabeth II, principal members of the Royal Family normally including the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Earl of Wessex and the Duke of Kent, the Prime Minister, leaders of the other major political parties, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Commonwealth High Commissioners and representatives from the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets and the civilian services, and veterans’ groups. Two minutes' silence is held at 11 a.m., before the laying of the wreaths. This silence is marked by the firing of a field gun on Horse Guards Parade to begin and end the silence, followed by Royal Marines buglers sounding Last Post.
The parade consists mainly of an extensive march past by veterans, with military bands playing music following the list of the Traditional Music of Remembrance.
Other members of the British Royal Family watch from the balcony of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
After the ceremony, a parade of veterans and other related groups, organised by the Royal British Legion, marches past the Cenotaph, each section of which lays a wreath as it passes. Only ticketed participants can take part in the march past.
From 1919 until the Second World War remembrance observance was always marked on 11 November itself. It was then moved to Remembrance Sunday, but since the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1995, it has become usual to hold ceremonies on both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.
Each year, the music at the National Ceremony of Remembrance remains the same, following a programme finalised in 1930:
Rule, Britannia! by Thomas Arne
Heart of Oak by William Boyce
The Minstrel Boy by Thomas Moore
Men of Harlech
The Skye Boat Song
Isle of Beauty by Thomas Haynes Bayly
David of the White Rock
Oft in the Stilly Night by John Stevenson
Flowers of the Forest
Nimrod from the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar
Dido's lament by Henry Purcell
O Valiant Hearts by Charles Harris
Solemn Melody by Walford Davies
Last Post – a bugle call
Beethoven's Funeral March No. 1, by Johann Heinrich Walch
O God, Our Help in Ages Past – words by Isaac Watts, music by William Croft
Reveille – a bugle call
God Save The Queen
Other pieces of music are then played during the march past and wreath laying by veterans, starting with Trumpet Voluntary and followed by It's A Long Way To Tipperary, the marching song of the Connaught Rangers, a famous British Army Irish Regiment of long ago.
The following is complied from press reports on 8 November 2015:
"The nation paid silent respect to the country's war dead today in a Remembrance Sunday service. Leading the nation in remembrance, as ever, was the Queen, who first laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in 1945 and has done so every year since, except on the four occasions when she was overseas.
Dressed in her customary all-black ensemble with a clutch of scarlet poppies pinned against her left shoulder, she stepped forward following the end of the two-minute silence marked by the sounding of Last Post by 10 Royal Marine buglers.
The Queen laid her wreath at the foot of the Sir Edwin Lutyens Portland stone monument to the Glorious Dead, then stood with her head momentarily bowed.
She was joined by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, who was invited to the Cenotaph for the first time to lay a wreath marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by British troops.
Watched by his wife Queen Maxima, who stood next to the Duchess of Cambridge in the Royal Box, the King laid a wreath marked with the simple message, 'In remembrance of the British men and women who gave their lives for our future.'
Wreaths were then laid by members of the Royal Family, all wearing military uniform: Prince Philip; then Prince Andrew, Prince Harry and Prince William at the same time ; then Prince Edward, Princess Anne and the Duke of Kent at the same time.
Three members of the Royal Family laying wreaths at the same time was an innovation in 2015 designed to slightly reduce the amount of time of the ceremony and thereby reduce the time that the Queen had to be standing.
Prince Charles attended a remembrance service in New Zealand.
The Prime Minister then laid a wreath. The Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, appeared at the Cenotaph for the first time. He wore both a suit and a red poppy for the occasion.
His bow as he laid a wreath marked with the words 'let us resolve to create a world of peace' was imperceptible – and not enough for some critics. Yet unlike the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Battle service earlier this year, Mr Corbyn did join in with the singing of the national anthem.
Following the end of the official service at the Cenotaph, a mammoth column more than 10,000-strong (some 9,000 of whom were veterans) began marching along Whitehall, saluting the Cenotaph as they passed, Parliament Street, Great George Street, Horse Guards Road and back to Horse Guard Parade. The Duke of Cambridge took the salute from the column on Horse Guards Parade.
Time takes its inevitable toll on even the most stoic among us, and this year only a dozen World War Two veterans marched with the Spirit of Normandy Trust, a year after the Normandy Veterans' Association disbanded.
Within their ranks was 95-year-old former Sapper Don Sheppard of the Royal Engineers. Sheppard was of the eldest on parade and was pushed in his wheelchair by his 19-year-old grandson, Sam who, in between studying at Queen Mary University, volunteers with the Normandy veterans.
'It is because of my admiration for them,' he says. 'I see them as role models and just have the utmost respect for what they did.'
While some had blankets covering their legs against the grey November day, other veterans of more recent wars had only stumps to show for their service to this country during 13 long years of war in Afghanistan.
As well as that terrible toll of personal sacrifice, the collective losses – and triumphs - of some of the country’s most historic regiments were also honoured yesterday.
The Gurkha Brigade Association - marking 200 years of service in the British Army – marched to warm ripples of applause. The King’s Royal Hussars, represented yesterday by 126 veterans, this year also celebrate 300 years since the regiment was raised.
They were led by General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of Nato and Colonel of the regiment who himself was marching for the first time.
'We are joined by a golden thread to all those generations who have gone before us,” he said. “We are who we are, because of those that have gone before us.' "
Cenotaph Ceremony & March Past - 8 November 2015
Summary of Contingents
Column Number of marchers
B (Lead) 1,754
C 1,298
D 1,312
E 1,497
F 1,325
A 1,551
Ex-Service Total 8,737
M (Non ex-Service) 1,621
Total 10,358
Column B
Marker Detachment Number
1 Reconnaissance Corps 18 Anniversary
2 43rd Reconnaissance Regiment Old Comrades Assoc 10
3 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery Association 60
4 Royal Artillery Association 18
5 Royal Engineers Association 37
6 Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal Association 65 Anniversary
7 Airborne Engineers Association 24
8 Royal Signals Association 48
9 Army Air Corps Association 42
10 Royal Army Service Corps & Royal Corps Transport Assoc 54
11 RAOC Association 18
12 Army Catering Corps Association 48
13 Royal Pioneer Corps Association 54 Anniversary
14 Royal Army Medical Corps Association 36
15 Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers Association 48
16 Royal Military Police Association 100
17 The RAEC and ETS Branch Association 12
18 Royal Army Pay Corps Regimental Association 36
19 Royal Army Veterinary Corps & Royal Army Dental Corps 18
20 Royal Army Physical Training Corps 24
21 Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps Assoc 48
22 Royal Scots Dragoon Guards 30
23 Royal Dragoon Guards 78
24 Queen's Royal Hussars (The Queen's Own & Royal Irish) 12
25 Kings Royal Hussars Regimental Association 126
26 16/5th Queen's Royal Lancers 36
27 17/21 Lancers 30
28 The Royal Lancers 24 New for 2015
29 JLR RAC Old Boys' Association 30
30 Association of Ammunition Technicians 24
31 Beachley Old Boys Association 36
32 Arborfield Old Boys Association 25
33 Gallipoli & Dardenelles International 24
34 Special Observers Association 24
35 The Parachute Squadron Royal Armoured Corps 24 New
36 Intelligence Corps Association 48
37 Women's Royal Army Corps Association 120
38 656 Squadron Association 24
39 Home Guard Association 9
40 British Resistance Movement (Coleshill Research Team) 12
41 British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association 48
42 British Ex-Services Wheelchair Sports Association 24
43 Royal Hospital Chelsea 30
44 Queen Alexandra's Hospital Home for Disabled Ex-Servicemen & Women 30
45 The Royal Star & Garter Homes 20
46 Combat Stress 48
Total 1,754
Column C
Marker Detachment Number
1 Royal Air Force Association 150
2 Royal Air Force Regiment Association 300
3 Royal Air Forces Ex-Prisoner's of War Association 20
4 Royal Observer Corps Association 75 Anniversary
5 National Service (Royal Air Force) Association 42
6 RAFLING Association 24
7 6 Squadron (Royal Air Force) Association 18
8 7 Squadron Association 25
9 8 Squadron Association 24
10 RAF Habbaniya Association 25
11 Royal Air Force & Defence Fire Services Association 30
12 Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Association 30
13 Units of the Far East Air Force 28 New
14 Royal Air Force Yatesbury Association 16
15 Royal Air Force Airfield Construction Branch Association 12
16 RAFSE(s) Assoc 45 New
17 Royal Air Force Movements and Mobile Air Movements Squadron Association (RAF MAMS) 24
18 Royal Air Force Masirah & Salalah Veterans Assoc 24 New
19 WAAF/WRAF/RAF(W) 25
19 Blenheim Society 18
20 Coastal Command & Maritime Air Association 24
21 Air Sea Rescue & Marine Craft Sections Club 15
22 Federation of RAF Apprentice & Boy Entrant Assocs 150
23 Royal Air Force Air Loadmasters Association 24
24 Royal Air Force Police Association 90
25 Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service Association 40
Total 1,298
Column D
Marker Detachment Number
1 Not Forgotten Association 54
2 Stoll 18
3 Ulster Defence Regiment 72
4 Army Dog Unit Northern Ireland Association 48
5 North Irish Horse & Irish Regiments Old Comrades Association 78
6 Northern Ireland Veterans' Association 40
7 Irish United Nations Veterans Association 12
8 ONET UK 10
9 St Helena Government UK 24
10 South Atlantic Medal Association 196
11 SSAFA 37
12 First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteers Corps) 12
13 Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen & Women 48
14 British Nuclear Test Veterans Association 48
15 War Widows Association 132
16 Gurkha Brigade Association 160 Anniversary
17 British Gurkha Welfare Society 100 Anniversary
18 West Indian Association of Service Personnel 18
19 Trucial Oman Scouts Association 18
20 Bond Van Wapenbroeders 35
21 Polish Ex-Combatants Association in Great Britain 25
22 Stowarzyszenie Polskich Kombatantów Limited 18 New
23 Royal Hong Kong Regiment Association 12
24 Canadian Veterans Association 10
25 Hong Kong Ex-Servicemen's Association (UK Branch) 24
26 Hong Kong Military Service Corps 28
27 Foreign Legion Association 24
28 Undivided Indian Army Ex Servicemen Association 11 New
Total 1,312
Column E
Marker Detachment Number
1 Royal Marines Association 198
2 Royal Naval Association 150
3 Merchant Navy Association 130
4 Sea Harrier Association 24
5 Flower Class Corvette Association 18
6 HMS Andromeda Association 18
7 HMS Argonaut Association 30
8 HMS Bulwark, Albion & Centaur Association 25
9 HMS Cumberland Association 18
10 HMS Ganges Association 48
11 HMS Glasgow Association 30
12 HMS St Vincent Association 26
13 HMS Tiger Association 25
14 Algerines Association 20
15 Ton Class Association 24
16 Type 42 Association 48
17 Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service 36
18 Association of WRENS 90
19 Royal Fleet Auxiliary Association 10
20 Royal Naval Communications Association 30
21 Royal Naval Medical Branch Ratings & Sick Berth Staff Association 24
22 Royal Naval Benevolent Trust 18
23 Yangtze Incident Association 24
24 Special Boat Service Association 6
25 Submariners Association 30
26 Association of Royal Yachtsmen 30
27 Broadsword Association 36
28 Aircraft Handlers Association 36
29 Aircrewmans Association 40 Anniversary
30 Cloud Observers Association 10
31 The Fisgard Association 40
32 Fleet Air Arm Armourers Association 36
33 Fleet Air Arm Association 25
34 Fleet Air Arm Bucaneer Association 24
35 Fleet Air Arm Field Gun Association 24
36 Fleet Air Arm Junglie Association 18
37 Fleet Air Arm Officers Association 30
38 Fleet Air Arm Safety Equipment & Survival Association 24
39 Royal Navy School of Physical Training 24
Total 1,497
Column F
Marker Detachment Number
1 Blind Veterans UK 198
2 Far East Prisoners of War 18
3 Burma Star Association 40
4 Monte Cassino Society20
5 Queen's Bodyguard of The Yeoman of The Guard 18
6 Pen and Sword Club 15
7 TRBL Ex-Service Members 301
8 The Royal British Legion Poppy Factory 4
9 The Royal British Legion Scotland 24
10 Officers Association 5
11 Black and White Club 18
12 National Pigeon War Service 30
13 National Service Veterans Alliance 50
14 Gallantry Medallists League 46
15 National Malaya & Borneo Veterans Association 98
16 National Gulf Veterans & Families Association 30
17 Fellowship of the Services 100
18 Memorable Order of Tin Hats 24
19 Suez Veterans Association 50
20 Aden Veterans Association 72
21 1st Army Association 36
22 Showmens' Guild of Great Britain 40
23 Special Forces Club 12
24 The Spirit of Normandy Trust 28
25 Italy Star Association, 1943-1945, 48
Total 1,325
Column A
Marker Detachment Number
1 1LI Association 36
2 Royal Green Jackets Association 198
3 Parachute Regimental Association 174
4 King's Own Scottish Borderers 60
5 Black Watch Association 45
6 Gordon Highlanders Association 60
7 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Regimental Association 12
8 Queen's Own Highlanders Regimental Association 48
9 London Scottish Regimental Association 30
10 Grenadier Guards Association 48
11 Coldstream Guards Association 48
12 Scots Guards Association 48
13 Guards Parachute Association 36
14 4 Company Association (Parachute Regiment) 24
15 Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment 72
16 Royal East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) Past & Present Association 30
17 Prince of Wales' Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians) Regimental Association 24
18 Royal Hampshire Regiment Comrades Association 14
19 The Royal Hampshire Regimental Club 24 New for 2015
20 Royal Northumberland Fusiliers 48 New
21 Royal Sussex Regimental Association 12
22 Green Howards Association 24
23 Cheshire Regiment Association 24
24 Sherwood Foresters & Worcestershire Regiment 36
25 Mercian Regiment Association 30
26 Special Air Service Regimental Association 4
27 The King's Own Royal Border Regiment 100
28 The Staffordshire Regiment 48
29 Rifles Regimental Association 40
30 The Rifles & Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire & Wiltshire Regimental Association 30
31 Durham Light Infantry Association 60
32 King's Royal Rifle Corps Association 50
33 King's African Rifles 14 New for 2015
Total 1,551
Column M
Marker Detachment Number
1 Transport For London 48
2 Children of the Far East Prisoners of War 60
3 First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteers Corps) 24
4 Munitions Workers Association18
5 Evacuees Reunion Association48
6 TOC H 20
7 Salvation Army 36
8 Naval Canteen Service & Expeditionary Force Institutes Association 12 Previously NAAFI
9 Royal Voluntary Service 24
10 Civil Defence Association 8
11 National Association of Retired Police Officers 36
12 Metropolitan Special Constabulary 36
13 London Ambulance Service NHS Trust 36
14 London Ambulance Service Retirement Association 18
15 St John Ambulance 36
16 British Red Cross 12
17 St Andrew's Ambulance Association 6
18 The Firefighters Memorial Trust 24
19 Royal Ulster Constabulary (GC) Association 36
20 Ulster Special Constabulary Association 30
21 Commonwealth War Graves Commission 12
22 Daniel's Trust 36
23 Civilians Representing Families 180
24 Royal Mail Group Ltd 24
25 Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 24
26 The Blue Cross 24
27 PDSA 24
28 HM Ships Glorious Ardent & ACASTA Association 24 Anniversary
29 Old Cryptians' Club 12
30 Fighting G Club 18 Anniversary
31 Malayan Volunteers Group 12
32 Gallipoli Association 18
33 Ministry of Defence 20
34 TRBL Non Ex-Service Members 117
35 TRBL Women's Section 20
36 Union Jack Club 12
37 Western Front Association 8
38 Shot at Dawn Pardons Campaign 18
39 Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes 24
40 National Association of Round Tables 24
41 Lions Club International 24
42 Rotary International 24
43 41 Club 6
44 Equity 12
45 Romany & Traveller Society 18
46 Sea Cadet Corps 30
47 Combined Cadet Force 30
48 Army Cadet Force 30
49 Air Training Corps 30
50 Scout Association 30
51 Girlguiding London & South East England 30
52 Boys Brigade 30
53 Girls Brigade England & Wales 30
54 Church Lads & Church Girls Brigade 30
55 Metropolitan Police Volunteer Police Cadets 18
56 St John Ambulance Cadets 18
57 YMCA 12
Total 1,621
Remembrance Sunday
In the United Kingdom, Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday in November, which is the Sunday nearest to 11 November Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. Remembrance Sunday is held to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts.
Remembrance Sunday is marked by ceremonies at local war memorials in most cities, towns and villages, attended by civic dignitaries, ex-servicemen and -women, members of local armed forces regular and reserve units, military cadet forces and uniformed youth organisations. Wreaths of remembrance poppies are laid on the memorials and two minutes’ silence is observed at 11 a.m.
The United Kingdom national ceremony is held in London at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Wreaths are laid by Queen Elizabeth II, principal members of the Royal Family normally including the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Earl of Wessex and the Duke of Kent, the Prime Minister, leaders of the other major political parties, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Commonwealth High Commissioners and representatives from the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets and the civilian services, and veterans’ groups. Two minutes' silence is held at 11 a.m., before the laying of the wreaths. This silence is marked by the firing of a field gun on Horse Guards Parade to begin and end the silence, followed by Royal Marines buglers sounding Last Post.
The parade consists mainly of an extensive march past, with military bands playing music following the list of the Traditional Music of Remembrance.
Other members of the British Royal Family watch from the balcony of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
After the ceremony, a parade of veterans and other related groups, organised by the Royal British Legion, marches past the Cenotaph, each section of which lays a wreath as it passes. Only ticketed participants can take part in the march past.
From 1919 until the Second World War remembrance observance was always marked on 11 November itself. It was then moved to Remembrance Sunday, but since the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1995, it has become usual to hold ceremonies on both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.
Each year, the programme of music at the National Ceremony remains the same, following a programme finalised in 1930:
Rule, Britannia! by Thomas Arne
Heart of Oak by William Boyce
The Minstrel Boy by Thomas Moore
Men of Harlech
The Skye Boat Song
Isle of Beauty by Thomas Haynes Bayly
David of the White Rock
Oft in the Stilly Night by John Stevenson
Flowers of the Forest
Nimrod from the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar
Dido's lament by Henry Purcell
O Valiant Hearts by Charles Harris
Solemn Melody by Walford Davies
Last Post – a bugle call
Beethoven's Funeral March No. 1, by Johann Heinrich Walch
O God, Our Help in Ages Past – words by Isaac Watts, music by William Croft
Reveille – a bugle call
God Save The Queen
Other pieces of music are then played during the march past and wreath laying by veterans, starting with Trumpet Voluntary and followed by It's A Long Way To Tipperary, the marching song of the Connaught Rangers, a famous British Army Irish Regiment of long ago.
Cenotaph Ceremony and March Past - 10 November 2013 Order of March and Ticket Allocation
Column D [Lead Column]
Marker NumberDetachmentNo of marchers
1War Widows Association 126
2British Gurkha Welfare Society 78
3West Indian Association of Service Personnel 18
4Trucial Oman Scouts Association 18
5Bond Van Wapenbroeders 26
6Polish Ex-Combatants Association in Great Britain Trust Fund 40
7Canadian Veterans Association 10
9Hong Kong Ex-Servicemen's Association (UK Branch) 24
10Hong Kong Military Service Corps 18
11Foreign Legion Association 24
12Not Forgotten Association 54
13The Royal British Legion 348
14The Royal British Legion Poppy Factory 6 New
15The Royal British Legion Scotland 26
16Ulster Defence Regiment72
18Northern Ireland Veterans' Association 42
19Irish United Nations Veterans Association 12
20ONET UK 10
21St Helena Government UK 24
22Commando Veterans Association 30
23South Atlantic Medal Association 196
24SSAFA Forces Help 66
25First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteers Corps) 12
26Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen & Women 48
27British Nuclear Test Veterans Association 48
28British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association 48
29British Ex-Services Wheelchair Sports Association24
30Royal Hospital Chelsea 30
31Queen Alexandra's Hospital Home for Disabled Ex-Servicemen30
32The Royal Star & Garter Homes20
33Combat Stress48
34Walking With The Wounded14
Total 1,590
Column E
1Merchant Navy Association 150
2Royal Naval Association 160
3Royal Marines Association 198
4Aircraft Handlers Association36
5Telegraphist Air Gunners Association12
6Aircrewmans Association30
7Cloud Observers Association10
8Fleet Air Arm Armourers Association36
9Fleet Air Arm Association30
10Fleet Air Arm Bucaneer Association24
11Fleet Air Arm Field Gun Association24
12Fleet Air Arm Junglie Association18
13Fleet Air Arm Officers Association40
14Fleet Air Arm Safety Equipment & Survival Association18
15Sea Harrier Association24
16Flower Class Corvette Association18
17LST & Landing Craft Association10
18HMS Andromeda Association18
19HMS Bulwark, Albion & Centaur Association22
20HMS Cumberland Association18
21HMS Ganges Association36
22HMS Glasgow Association30
23HMS St Vincent Association36
24HMS Tiger Association20
25Algerines Association25
26Ton Class Association30
27Type 42 Association35 New
28Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service35
29VAD RN Association18
30Association of WRENS90
31Royal Fleet Auxiliary Association10
32Royal Naval Communications Association30
33Royal Naval Medical Branch Ratings & Sick Berth Staff Association 6
34Royal Naval Benevolent Trust18
35Royal Navy School of Physical Training24
36Russian Convoy Club30
37Yangtze Incident Association24
38Special Boat Service Association 6
39Submariners Association30
40Association of Royal Yachtsmen24
41Broadsword Association36
Total 1,489
Column F
1British Korean Veterans Association 500
2National Malaya & Borneo Veterans Association98
3Normandy Veterans Association 6
4National Service Veterans Alliance 150
5Italy Star Association48
6Monte Cassino Society20
7Gallantry Medallists League36
8National Pigeon War Service30
9National Gulf Veterans & Families Association30
10Fellowship of the Services 150
11Burma Star Association50
12Far East Prisoners of War 8
14Memorable Order of Tin Hats36
15Suez Veterans Association50
16Aden Veterans Association84
171st Army Association36
18Showmens' Guild of Great Britain30
19Queen's Bodyguard of The Yeoman of The Guard18
20Popski's Private Army 4
21Pen and Sword Club18
22Black and White Club18 New
Total 1,420
Column A
2Royal Northumberland Fusiliers48
3The Duke of Lancaster's Regimental Association30
4Green Howards Association44
6Cheshire Regiment Association24
7Sherwood Foresters & Worcestershire Regiment36
8Mercian Regiment Association30
9Rifles Regimental Association48
10The Rifles & Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire & Wiltshire Regimental Association
30
11Royal Irish Regiment Association12
12Durham Light Infantry Association60
13King's Royal Rifle Corps Association60
14Light Infantry Association48 New
151LI Association36 New
16Royal Green Jackets Association 198
17Parachute Regimental Association 174
18The Royal Regiment of Scotland Association18 New
19Royal Scots Regimental Association40
20King's Own Scottish Borderers50
21Black Watch Association45
22Gordon Highlanders Association60
23Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Regimental Association 6
24The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)24 New
25Grenadier Guards Association48
26Coldstream Guards Association48
27Scots Guards Association40
28Guards Parachute Association36
294 Company Association (Parachute Regiment)24
30Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment72
32Royal East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) Past & Present Association30
33Royal Sussex Regimental Association12
34Royal Hampshire Regiment Comrades Association12
Total 1,443
Column B
1Blind Veterans UK 198
2Royal Scots Dragoon Guards30
3Royal Dragoon Guards78
4Queen's Royal Hussars (The Queen's Own & Royal Irish)12
5Kings Royal Hussars Regimental Association96
6The 16/5th Queen's Royal Lancers36 New
7Gurkha Brigade Association36
8JLR RAC Old Boys' Association30
943rd Reconnaissance Regiment Old Comrades Association 6
10Army Dog Unit Northern Ireland Association48
11North Irish Horse & Irish Regiments Old Comrades Association78
12Association of Ammunition Technicians36
13Beachley Old Boys Association36
14Arborfield Old Boys Association18
15Women's Royal Army Corps Association 120
16656 Squadron Association72
17Home Guard Association12
183rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery Association60
19Royal Artillery Association18
20Royal Engineers Association30
21Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal Association65
22Airborne Engineers Association24
23Mill Hill (Postal & Courier Services) Veterans' Association30 New
24Royal Signals Association48
25Army Air Corps Association42
26Royal Army Service Corps & Royal Corps of Transport Association40
27RAOC Association18
28Army Catering Corps Association48
29Royal Pioneer Corps Association54
30Reconnaissance Corps18
31Royal Army Medical Corps Association36
32Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers Association48
33Royal Military Police Association 100
34The RAEC and ETS Branch Association 6
35Royal Army Pay Corps Regimental Association36
36Royal Army Veterinary Corps & Royal Army Dental Corps18
37Intelligence Corps Association30
38Royal Army Physical Training Corps24
39Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps Association48
Total 1,783
Column C
1Royal Air Forces Association 125
2Royal Air Force Regiment Association 300
3Royal Air Forces Ex-Prisoner's of War Association20
4 Federation of Royal Air Force Apprentice & Boy Entrant Associations 150
5Royal Air Force Air Loadmasters Association24
6Royal Air Force Police Association90
7Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service Association40
8Bomber Command Association20
9Royal Observer Corps Association80
10National Service (Royal Air Force) Association42
11RAFLING Association24
126 Squadron (Royal Air Force) Association18
137 Squadron Association30
14RAF Habbaniya Association30
15Royal Air Force & Defence Fire Services Association30
16Air Sea Rescue & Marine Craft Sections Club12
17Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Association30
18Royal Air Force Butterworth & Penang Association 6
19Royal Air Force Yatesbury Association15
20Royal Air Force Airfield Construction Branch Association12
21Women's Auxiliary Air Force12
22Blenheim Society18
23Coastal Command & Maritime Air Association24
Total 1,152
Column M
1Transport For London48
2First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteers Corps)24
3Munitions Workers Association18
4Children of the Far East Prisoners of War60
5Evacuees Reunion Association48
6TOC H12
7Salvation Army36
8NAAFI12
10Civil Defence Association10
11British Resistance Movement (Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team)12 New
12National Association of Retired Police Officers36
13Metropolitan Special Constabulary36
14London Ambulance Service NHS Trust36
15London Ambulance Service Retirement Association18
16St John Ambulance36
17St Andrew's Ambulance Association 6
18Firefighters Memorial Trust24
19Royal Ulster Constabulary (GC) Association36
20Ulster Special Constabulary Association30
21Commonwealth War Graves Commission12
22Daniel's Trust36
23Civilians Representing Families85
24Royal Mail Group Ltd24
25Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals24
26The Blue Cross18
27PDSA24
28HM Ships Glorious Ardent & ACASTA Association24
29Old Cryptians' Club12
30Fighting G Club18
31Malayan Volunteers Group12
32Gallipoli Association18
33Ministry of Defence30
34RBL Non Ex-Service Members 123
35Union Jack Club12
36Western Front Association11
37Shot at Dawn Pardons Campaign18
38Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes24
39National Association of Round Tables24
40Lions Club International24
41Rotary International24
4241 Club 6 New
43Equity12
44Romany & Traveller Society18
45Sea Cadet Corps30
46Combined Cadet Force30
47Army Cadet Force30
48Air Training Corps30
49Scout Association30
50Girlguiding London & South East England30
51Boys Brigade30
52Girls Brigade England & Wales30
53Church Lads & Church Girls Brigade30
54Metropolitan Police Volunteer Police Cadets18
55St John Ambulance Cadets18
56British Red Cross12 New
Total 1,489
Newindicates first time participation in 2013.
Cenotaph Ceremony & March Past - 10 November 2013 Summary of Contingent Composition
Column A1,443
Column B1,783
Column C1,152
Column D1,590
Column E1,489
Column F1,420
Sub-total8,877
Column M1,489
Total 10,366
News report on 10 November 2013
Remembrance Sunday 2013: The Queen leads nation in honouring fallen heroes
Her Majesty laid the first wreath at the Cenotaph on Whitehall as the UK fell silent at 11am in tribute to those who lost their lives in conflict
The Queen was joined by Prince Philip and other members of the Royal Family as she led the nation in honouring members of the Armed Forces killed in conflict.
The monarch laid the first wreath at the Cenotaph on Whitehall to commemorate all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the decades since the First World War, bowing her head after paying her respects.
As Remembrance Sunday services took place around the UK to remember our war dead, the royals, politicians, military leaders, veterans and serving personnel laid wreaths of poppies at the monument.
Prince Harry was laying the wreath on behalf of his father Prince Charles, who is currently abroad on an official tour of India with the Duchess of Cornwall, and was marking the occasion there.
Kate Middleton, who dressed in a navy, military-style coat, watched from a balcony with Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Princess Anne's husband, Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence.
Troops in Afghanistan were joined by the Duke of York, who laid a wreath during a service held at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province to mark Remembrance Sunday.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond also flew to Afghanistan last night to join servicemen and women.
Millions across the UK fell silent in tribute to those lost in war, joining the crowds gathered in central London who stood in a moment of quiet contemplation as Big Ben struck 11am.
During the two-minute silence, only the distant sounds of traffic and the rustling of leaves could be heard, despite the fact that police said Whitehall was at capacity.
The beginning and end of the silence was marked with the firing of a round by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery, using a 13-pounder First World War gun.
In cold but bright weather, the royals and dignitaries then laid their wreaths at the Cenotaph.
Prime Minister David Cameron was first after the royals to do so, followed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband.
Former prime ministers Sir John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and London Mayor Boris Johnson also attended the ceremony.
The Duchess of Cambridge was accompanied on the Foreign Office balcony by the Countess of Wessex and Vice Admiral Tim Laurence.
The Duke of Edinburgh, who joined the Royal Navy in 1939, wore the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet for the ceremony. Prince Harry, who has undertaken two tours of duty in Afghanistan, wore the uniform of a Captain in the Household Cavalry. His brother William left operational service recently after more than seven years in the forces. He wore the uniform of Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant.
Following the wreath-laying, the Bishop of London the Right Reverend Richard Chartres conducted a short service in his role as Dean of HM Chapels Royal.
More than 10,000 veterans and civilians then marched past the Cenotaph to pay their respects to their departed comrades, led this year by members of the War Widows Association, wearing black coats and red scarves.
They were all warmly applauded as they paraded past, some veterans in wheelchairs and motorised scooters as they marked the loss of their comrades.
There was a large contingent of veterans from the Korean War, the armistice of which was 60 years ago.
The 70th anniversaries of the Battle of the Atlantic and the Dambusters' Raid were also marked this year.
St Margaret, Cley-next-the-Sea, Norfolk
In 2004 I wrote: 'It is repetitious to observe that East Anglia was the industrial heartland of late medieval England, or that this nation was a devout Catholic country at the time, or even that the collision of these two facts resulted in some of the most splendid church architecture in Europe.
Virtually every parish church in the land bears some evidence of this, but it is particularly obvious in the centres of power of those times: at Lavenham in Suffolk, where the great wool merchants held court, at Salle and East Harling in Norfolk, where great landed families competed to influence the crown, and here at Cley, once at the harbour mouth of Blakeney Haven, the great north Norfolk conurbation of ports, where the streets thronged with wealthy merchants and their workers.
Today, the harbour is lost to us, but you can still make out its shape if you stand in Wiveton churchyard and look back across to Cley, half a mile off. At Blakeney itself, the quayside survives with some of its buildings to help a reconstruction in the mind; but Cley has nothing now except its church and a few cottages, a village green and a windmill. Ironically, you wouldn't even know that the sea was close.
Of the four churches of Blakeney Haven, St Margaret was the biggest, grandest and most expensive. It is still all of these things today. It is replete with all those elements we find most exciting when we visit a medieval East Anglian church: a seven sacrament font, bench ends depicting people and mythical creatures, brasses, bosses, stalls and the most elaborate niches in the kingdom, a smattering of old glass, and memorable tracery that, being Decorated rather than Perpendicular, is unfamiliar in East Anglia. We have explored elsewhere on my site, at Salle and Cawston, exactly why these churches were built so large and elaborate. Well, St Margaret is another remarkable testimony.
The setting is lovely, on a gentle rise above the village green. The graveyard is scattered, many of the stones 18th century, and not lined up in clinical rows by misguided 1970s lawn-mower enthusiasts. If you come in late spring the graveyard is uncut, full of wild flowers and tall grasses, but in this September morning it was neat and trim, a velvet mount for the church.
What you see is, at first sight, complex. The vast nave with its aisles and clerestory is all of a piece. The offset tower is rather mean, and although it seems likely it was intended for rebuilding, the huge and beautiful west window suggests that it would have been in the same place. The chancel is also curiously simple, and eventually would have been replaced. Two transepts stick out to north and south, the southern one roofless and glassless, that to the north entirely ruinous.
The merchant de Vaux family were responsible for rebuilding the church, and the new nave was built to the south of the original nave, which was then demolished and replaced with an aisle. You can still see its roofline on the east face of the tower. The master mason was William Ramsey, one of the most significant in England; the Ramsey family were responsible for the Palace of Westminster and parts of Norwich Cathedral. Work began in the 1320s, and proceeded quickly until the building was pretty well complete by the mid-1340s. This is an early date for the complete rebuilding of an East Anglian church, and shows that here, in Blakeney Haven, the new money was early. It would not be for a hundred years that Suffolk and south Norfolk families were in a position to do the same. Why was this? Partly, the wealth of the Blakeney Haven ports did not depend just on East Anglian cloth. But there was another, more apocalyptic factor.
Before Ramsey could turn his attention to the chancel and the problem of that blessed tower, a new and frightening pestilence reached England. For anyone living in a port, diseases brought from abroad were an everyday hazard that had to be balanced against full employment and opportunities for wealth creation. Even so, this was something on a spectacular scale, a strain of bubonic plague that reached the south coast ports in August 1348 and that by the dismal late winter months of 1349 had reached Norfolk. Perhaps half the population died, although in the ports there seems to have been a higher survival rate; perhaps there was more immunity due to previous exposure. However, Ramsey and his son both died, and the work of the ports was disrupted for several generations. The Victorians, relishing the gothic horror of the disaster, looked back from their own cholera-plagued century and called it the Black Death.
Half a century later, trade, confidence, and a renewed obsession with the cult of the dead led to more money being lavished on St Margaret. This was the time that the mighty south porch was built, a Perpendicular fortress that guards, rather uneasily, the Decorated entrance. The church was further furnished with a mighty rood screen, elaborately carved woodwork, and glass and a seven sacrament font intended to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church. By the early sixteenth century, Cley church was at a peak of its glory, but very quickly those times were to tumble.
The English Reformation brought to an abrupt end the need for bequests, and all work on developing the building stopped. And, state protestantism would sow the seeds that would help England emerge as an insular, capitalist nation, changing patterns of trade, and doing away with the need for Blakeney Haven, pushing Norfolk back into the relief of a long, agricultural sleep.
So, you take a walk around the outside of St Margaret, the window tracery a text book of the way English architecture developed over the centuries. The most beautiful is that in the south transept, elegant lights that build to a cluster of vast quatrefoils. This was competed on the eve of the Black Death, and is probably at the very apex of English artistic endeavour. But I think that it was never filled with glass. I can see no evidence that the transepts were completed in time for their use before the pestilence, or that there was ever a need to use them after the recovery from it. And, then, of course, the Reformation intervened.
You step into the church through the south porch, with its flanking shields of the Holy Trinity and the Instruments of the passion. Above, in the vaulting, are bosses. One shows an angry woman chasing a fox that has stolen her magnificent cockerel. Another, shows two devils beating the bare buttocks of a third figure. There is also an Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
Grand Perpendicular is so common in East Anglia that there is an unfamiliarity about the nave that is breathtaking, a feast for the senses. The west end of the church has been cleared, creating a cathedral-vastness, and the light, while not gloomy, does not have that white East Anglian quality familiar from Perpendicular buildings. The smell is of age rather than furniture polish, a creamy dampness that recalls former business rather than decay. The honeyed stone is also somehow foreign in this heartland of flint. It affects the sound in a different way. The building demands a certain amount of awe that is not just due to its size.
We arrived about an hour before a wedding was due to start, and as we explored the building we saw preparations build, the pews begin to fill, the minister and choir begin to robe, until we felt we were intruding, and left just as the bride arrived. But while I was not completely distracted from documenting the building, it was a reminder to me just how important weddings have become to the Church of England, not just in terms of the income they generate, but as a last bastion of the grounding of Faith in ordinary people's lives. They may no longer have their children baptised, they may no longer come on a Sunday at all; but marriage is the place that simple Christianity touches their lives - that, and their funeral, of course, although increasingly people are more militantly atheist about death than they are about love.
The seven sacrament font looks rather lonely in its clearing, and is not the most spectacular of its kind, although the imagery is a little unusual. The Last Rites, (NW) appear to show the Priest lying on the bed on top of the dying man. Confession (NE) shows the Priest and confessing man facing each other across a shriving bench. Confirmation (E) is the most compelling of all, because it appears to show a tonsured Priest rather than a bishop blessing a group of people that include children and babies. Mass (SW) is shown from behind, the Priest elevating the host while the acolytes on either side kneel and hold tapers. The eighth and odd panel is lost, but was probably the Crucifixion.
The most spectacularly un-East Anglian feature of the church are the great image niches that line the arcades. They are huge. Beneath the pedestals are depicted figures, including musicians (one plays a fife and drum), St George dispatching a dragon and a fearsome lion with a bone. There are traces of original colour, and they are simply spectacular.
More homely are the bench ends, including a beautiful mermaid, several figures reading books, and a poppyhead carved with a face sticking out its tongue, of a type sometimes called Scandal, although I have never been convinced by this. There are many brasses, some in the north aisle and others scattered around the south door, including two figures in their shrouds, and one fragment depicting a group of six weepers. In the north aisle is a fascinating collection of donated and collected ephemera, some suggesting that in the recent past this was a fairly Anglo-catholic place, including a beautiful Russian Orthodox cross. I rushed around taking photographs while the church filled with wedding guests.
And so, it was time to go. I decided that I was impressed by this church, but that I didn't love it. Looking around at the splendour of William Ramsey's work, at what survives of its elaborate furnishings, and sensing the echoes of the rich sacramental life it once hosted, I had a sudden vision of apocalypse - not of the Black Death so much, as of the end of a way of life replaced by something so wholly different in a few short years of Reformation. This church had been built for so much more than congregational worship, but this was all it could now do. It was as if the Anglican community was camped out uneasily in its ruins, in the vastness of something so wholly beyond their imagination.'
está sem luz mas no meu coraçao a sua beleza terá sempre uma cham,estes velhinhos candeeiros sabem histórias que partilham comigo AMORA PORTUGAL
(from Internet)
"In the autumn the island is rich in migrants. The autumn migration takes place between October and late November and allows to observe Codirossi chimney sweep, Pettirossi, Peppole. If you are lucky you can meet the Luì forestiero, the Pigliairche Pettirosso, the Scarlet Bullfinch. The secret, EBN experts explain, is to look for the carob trees: in autumn they know the period of maximum flowering and represent an irresistible attraction for the migratory.
There is one also in the courtyard of the kindergarten in the village. But just a ride around the island to observe Upupe, Codirossi, Canapini major from the superb collar. The north side of the island is a must. The Bertes nest on the high cliffs, while from up there it will not be rare to witness the acrobatic flights of the Falcons pilgrims engaged in hunting.
In the spring, migratory groups also arrive. The ferule blooms with their big yellow flowers are taken by assault by the birds: Beccafichi, Sterpazzole, Rigogoli with multicolored liveries, very small Luì. From February to the end of May Ventotene allows you to observe dozens of different species. Among the rarest of these species have been observed in Ventotene specimens of Culbianco isabellino, Usignolo d'Africa, Balia dell'Atlante, Trombettiere."
Ventotene: isola della migrazione :Autunno
(da Internet)
"In autunno l'isola è ricca di migratori. La migrazione autunnale avviene fra ottobre e fine novembre e permette di osservare Codirossi spazzacamino, Pettirossi, Peppole. Se si è fortunati si può incontrare il Luì forestiero, il Pigliamosche Pettirosso, il Ciuffolotto scarlatto. Il segreto, spiegano gli esperti di EBN, è cercare i carrubi: in autunno conoscono il periodo di massima fioritura e rappresentano un'attrattiva irresistibile per i migratori.
Ce n'è uno anche nel cortile della scuola materna in paese. Ma basterà un giro intorno all'isola per osservare Upupe, Codirossi, Canapini maggiori dal superbo collare. Meta obbligata il versante nord dell'isola. Le Berte nidificano sulle alte falesie, mentre da lassù non sarà raro assistere ai voli acrobatici dei Falchi pellegrini impegnati nella caccia.
In primavera arrivano ugualmente schiere di migratori. Le ferule fiorite con i loro grandi fiori gialli vengono prese d'assalto dagli uccelli: Beccafichi, Sterpazzole, Rigogoli dalle livree multicolori, piccolissimi Luì. Da febbraio e fino a tutto maggio Ventotene permette di osservare decine di specie diverse. Tra quelle più rare sono stati osservate a Ventotene esemplari di Culbianco isabellino, Usignolo d'Africa, Balia dell'Atlante, Trombettiere."
St Margaret, Cley-next-the-Sea, Norfolk
In 2004 I wrote: 'It is repetitious to observe that East Anglia was the industrial heartland of late medieval England, or that this nation was a devout Catholic country at the time, or even that the collision of these two facts resulted in some of the most splendid church architecture in Europe.
Virtually every parish church in the land bears some evidence of this, but it is particularly obvious in the centres of power of those times: at Lavenham in Suffolk, where the great wool merchants held court, at Salle and East Harling in Norfolk, where great landed families competed to influence the crown, and here at Cley, once at the harbour mouth of Blakeney Haven, the great north Norfolk conurbation of ports, where the streets thronged with wealthy merchants and their workers.
Today, the harbour is lost to us, but you can still make out its shape if you stand in Wiveton churchyard and look back across to Cley, half a mile off. At Blakeney itself, the quayside survives with some of its buildings to help a reconstruction in the mind; but Cley has nothing now except its church and a few cottages, a village green and a windmill. Ironically, you wouldn't even know that the sea was close.
Of the four churches of Blakeney Haven, St Margaret was the biggest, grandest and most expensive. It is still all of these things today. It is replete with all those elements we find most exciting when we visit a medieval East Anglian church: a seven sacrament font, bench ends depicting people and mythical creatures, brasses, bosses, stalls and the most elaborate niches in the kingdom, a smattering of old glass, and memorable tracery that, being Decorated rather than Perpendicular, is unfamiliar in East Anglia. We have explored elsewhere on my site, at Salle and Cawston, exactly why these churches were built so large and elaborate. Well, St Margaret is another remarkable testimony.
The setting is lovely, on a gentle rise above the village green. The graveyard is scattered, many of the stones 18th century, and not lined up in clinical rows by misguided 1970s lawn-mower enthusiasts. If you come in late spring the graveyard is uncut, full of wild flowers and tall grasses, but in this September morning it was neat and trim, a velvet mount for the church.
What you see is, at first sight, complex. The vast nave with its aisles and clerestory is all of a piece. The offset tower is rather mean, and although it seems likely it was intended for rebuilding, the huge and beautiful west window suggests that it would have been in the same place. The chancel is also curiously simple, and eventually would have been replaced. Two transepts stick out to north and south, the southern one roofless and glassless, that to the north entirely ruinous.
The merchant de Vaux family were responsible for rebuilding the church, and the new nave was built to the south of the original nave, which was then demolished and replaced with an aisle. You can still see its roofline on the east face of the tower. The master mason was William Ramsey, one of the most significant in England; the Ramsey family were responsible for the Palace of Westminster and parts of Norwich Cathedral. Work began in the 1320s, and proceeded quickly until the building was pretty well complete by the mid-1340s. This is an early date for the complete rebuilding of an East Anglian church, and shows that here, in Blakeney Haven, the new money was early. It would not be for a hundred years that Suffolk and south Norfolk families were in a position to do the same. Why was this? Partly, the wealth of the Blakeney Haven ports did not depend just on East Anglian cloth. But there was another, more apocalyptic factor.
Before Ramsey could turn his attention to the chancel and the problem of that blessed tower, a new and frightening pestilence reached England. For anyone living in a port, diseases brought from abroad were an everyday hazard that had to be balanced against full employment and opportunities for wealth creation. Even so, this was something on a spectacular scale, a strain of bubonic plague that reached the south coast ports in August 1348 and that by the dismal late winter months of 1349 had reached Norfolk. Perhaps half the population died, although in the ports there seems to have been a higher survival rate; perhaps there was more immunity due to previous exposure. However, Ramsey and his son both died, and the work of the ports was disrupted for several generations. The Victorians, relishing the gothic horror of the disaster, looked back from their own cholera-plagued century and called it the Black Death.
Half a century later, trade, confidence, and a renewed obsession with the cult of the dead led to more money being lavished on St Margaret. This was the time that the mighty south porch was built, a Perpendicular fortress that guards, rather uneasily, the Decorated entrance. The church was further furnished with a mighty rood screen, elaborately carved woodwork, and glass and a seven sacrament font intended to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church. By the early sixteenth century, Cley church was at a peak of its glory, but very quickly those times were to tumble.
The English Reformation brought to an abrupt end the need for bequests, and all work on developing the building stopped. And, state protestantism would sow the seeds that would help England emerge as an insular, capitalist nation, changing patterns of trade, and doing away with the need for Blakeney Haven, pushing Norfolk back into the relief of a long, agricultural sleep.
So, you take a walk around the outside of St Margaret, the window tracery a text book of the way English architecture developed over the centuries. The most beautiful is that in the south transept, elegant lights that build to a cluster of vast quatrefoils. This was competed on the eve of the Black Death, and is probably at the very apex of English artistic endeavour. But I think that it was never filled with glass. I can see no evidence that the transepts were completed in time for their use before the pestilence, or that there was ever a need to use them after the recovery from it. And, then, of course, the Reformation intervened.
You step into the church through the south porch, with its flanking shields of the Holy Trinity and the Instruments of the passion. Above, in the vaulting, are bosses. One shows an angry woman chasing a fox that has stolen her magnificent cockerel. Another, shows two devils beating the bare buttocks of a third figure. There is also an Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.
Grand Perpendicular is so common in East Anglia that there is an unfamiliarity about the nave that is breathtaking, a feast for the senses. The west end of the church has been cleared, creating a cathedral-vastness, and the light, while not gloomy, does not have that white East Anglian quality familiar from Perpendicular buildings. The smell is of age rather than furniture polish, a creamy dampness that recalls former business rather than decay. The honeyed stone is also somehow foreign in this heartland of flint. It affects the sound in a different way. The building demands a certain amount of awe that is not just due to its size.
We arrived about an hour before a wedding was due to start, and as we explored the building we saw preparations build, the pews begin to fill, the minister and choir begin to robe, until we felt we were intruding, and left just as the bride arrived. But while I was not completely distracted from documenting the building, it was a reminder to me just how important weddings have become to the Church of England, not just in terms of the income they generate, but as a last bastion of the grounding of Faith in ordinary people's lives. They may no longer have their children baptised, they may no longer come on a Sunday at all; but marriage is the place that simple Christianity touches their lives - that, and their funeral, of course, although increasingly people are more militantly atheist about death than they are about love.
The seven sacrament font looks rather lonely in its clearing, and is not the most spectacular of its kind, although the imagery is a little unusual. The Last Rites, (NW) appear to show the Priest lying on the bed on top of the dying man. Confession (NE) shows the Priest and confessing man facing each other across a shriving bench. Confirmation (E) is the most compelling of all, because it appears to show a tonsured Priest rather than a bishop blessing a group of people that include children and babies. Mass (SW) is shown from behind, the Priest elevating the host while the acolytes on either side kneel and hold tapers. The eighth and odd panel is lost, but was probably the Crucifixion.
The most spectacularly un-East Anglian feature of the church are the great image niches that line the arcades. They are huge. Beneath the pedestals are depicted figures, including musicians (one plays a fife and drum), St George dispatching a dragon and a fearsome lion with a bone. There are traces of original colour, and they are simply spectacular.
More homely are the bench ends, including a beautiful mermaid, several figures reading books, and a poppyhead carved with a face sticking out its tongue, of a type sometimes called Scandal, although I have never been convinced by this. There are many brasses, some in the north aisle and others scattered around the south door, including two figures in their shrouds, and one fragment depicting a group of six weepers. In the north aisle is a fascinating collection of donated and collected ephemera, some suggesting that in the recent past this was a fairly Anglo-catholic place, including a beautiful Russian Orthodox cross. I rushed around taking photographs while the church filled with wedding guests.
And so, it was time to go. I decided that I was impressed by this church, but that I didn't love it. Looking around at the splendour of William Ramsey's work, at what survives of its elaborate furnishings, and sensing the echoes of the rich sacramental life it once hosted, I had a sudden vision of apocalypse - not of the Black Death so much, as of the end of a way of life replaced by something so wholly different in a few short years of Reformation. This church had been built for so much more than congregational worship, but this was all it could now do. It was as if the Anglican community was camped out uneasily in its ruins, in the vastness of something so wholly beyond their imagination.'
Remembrance Sunday, 8 November 2015
In the United Kingdom, Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday in November, which is the Sunday nearest to 11 November, Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. Remembrance Sunday is held to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts.
Remembrance Sunday is marked by ceremonies at local war memorials in most cities, towns and villages, attended by civic dignitaries, ex-servicemen and -women, members of local armed forces regular and reserve units, military cadet forces and uniformed youth organisations. Two minutes’ silence is observed at 11 a.m. and wreaths of remembrance poppies are then laid on the memorials.
The United Kingdom national ceremony is held in London at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. Wreaths are laid by Queen Elizabeth II, principal members of the Royal Family normally including the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Earl of Wessex and the Duke of Kent, the Prime Minister, leaders of the other major political parties, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Commonwealth High Commissioners and representatives from the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets and the civilian services, and veterans’ groups. Two minutes' silence is held at 11 a.m., before the laying of the wreaths. This silence is marked by the firing of a field gun on Horse Guards Parade to begin and end the silence, followed by Royal Marines buglers sounding Last Post.
The parade consists mainly of an extensive march past by veterans, with military bands playing music following the list of the Traditional Music of Remembrance.
Other members of the British Royal Family watch from the balcony of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
After the ceremony, a parade of veterans and other related groups, organised by the Royal British Legion, marches past the Cenotaph, each section of which lays a wreath as it passes. Only ticketed participants can take part in the march past.
From 1919 until the Second World War remembrance observance was always marked on 11 November itself. It was then moved to Remembrance Sunday, but since the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1995, it has become usual to hold ceremonies on both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.
Each year, the music at the National Ceremony of Remembrance remains the same, following a programme finalised in 1930:
Rule, Britannia! by Thomas Arne
Heart of Oak by William Boyce
The Minstrel Boy by Thomas Moore
Men of Harlech
The Skye Boat Song
Isle of Beauty by Thomas Haynes Bayly
David of the White Rock
Oft in the Stilly Night by John Stevenson
Flowers of the Forest
Nimrod from the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar
Dido's lament by Henry Purcell
O Valiant Hearts by Charles Harris
Solemn Melody by Walford Davies
Last Post – a bugle call
Beethoven's Funeral March No. 1, by Johann Heinrich Walch
O God, Our Help in Ages Past – words by Isaac Watts, music by William Croft
Reveille – a bugle call
God Save The Queen
Other pieces of music are then played during the march past and wreath laying by veterans, starting with Trumpet Voluntary and followed by It's A Long Way To Tipperary, the marching song of the Connaught Rangers, a famous British Army Irish Regiment of long ago.
The following is complied from press reports on 8 November 2015:
"The nation paid silent respect to the country's war dead today in a Remembrance Sunday service. Leading the nation in remembrance, as ever, was the Queen, who first laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in 1945 and has done so every year since, except on the four occasions when she was overseas.
Dressed in her customary all-black ensemble with a clutch of scarlet poppies pinned against her left shoulder, she stepped forward following the end of the two-minute silence marked by the sounding of Last Post by 10 Royal Marine buglers.
The Queen laid her wreath at the foot of the Sir Edwin Lutyens Portland stone monument to the Glorious Dead, then stood with her head momentarily bowed.
She was joined by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, who was invited to the Cenotaph for the first time to lay a wreath marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands by British troops.
Watched by his wife Queen Maxima, who stood next to the Duchess of Cambridge in the Royal Box, the King laid a wreath marked with the simple message, 'In remembrance of the British men and women who gave their lives for our future.'
Wreaths were then laid by members of the Royal Family, all wearing military uniform: Prince Philip; then Prince Andrew, Prince Harry and Prince William at the same time ; then Prince Edward, Princess Anne and the Duke of Kent at the same time.
Three members of the Royal Family laying wreaths at the same time was an innovation in 2015 designed to slightly reduce the amount of time of the ceremony and thereby reduce the time that the Queen had to be standing.
Prince Charles attended a remembrance service in New Zealand.
The Prime Minister then laid a wreath. The Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, appeared at the Cenotaph for the first time. He wore both a suit and a red poppy for the occasion.
His bow as he laid a wreath marked with the words 'let us resolve to create a world of peace' was imperceptible – and not enough for some critics. Yet unlike the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Battle service earlier this year, Mr Corbyn did join in with the singing of the national anthem.
Following the end of the official service at the Cenotaph, a mammoth column more than 10,000-strong (some 9,000 of whom were veterans) began marching along Whitehall, saluting the Cenotaph as they passed, Parliament Street, Great George Street, Horse Guards Road and back to Horse Guard Parade. The Duke of Cambridge took the salute from the column on Horse Guards Parade.
Time takes its inevitable toll on even the most stoic among us, and this year only a dozen World War Two veterans marched with the Spirit of Normandy Trust, a year after the Normandy Veterans' Association disbanded.
Within their ranks was 95-year-old former Sapper Don Sheppard of the Royal Engineers. Sheppard was of the eldest on parade and was pushed in his wheelchair by his 19-year-old grandson, Sam who, in between studying at Queen Mary University, volunteers with the Normandy veterans.
'It is because of my admiration for them,' he says. 'I see them as role models and just have the utmost respect for what they did.'
While some had blankets covering their legs against the grey November day, other veterans of more recent wars had only stumps to show for their service to this country during 13 long years of war in Afghanistan.
As well as that terrible toll of personal sacrifice, the collective losses – and triumphs - of some of the country’s most historic regiments were also honoured yesterday.
The Gurkha Brigade Association - marking 200 years of service in the British Army – marched to warm ripples of applause. The King’s Royal Hussars, represented yesterday by 126 veterans, this year also celebrate 300 years since the regiment was raised.
They were led by General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of Nato and Colonel of the regiment who himself was marching for the first time.
'We are joined by a golden thread to all those generations who have gone before us,” he said. “We are who we are, because of those that have gone before us.' "
Cenotaph Ceremony & March Past - 8 November 2015
Summary of Contingents
Column Number of marchers
B (Lead) 1,754
C 1,298
D 1,312
E 1,497
F 1,325
A 1,551
Ex-Service Total 8,737
M (Non ex-Service) 1,621
Total 10,358
Column B
Marker Detachment Number
1 Reconnaissance Corps 18 Anniversary
2 43rd Reconnaissance Regiment Old Comrades Assoc 10
3 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery Association 60
4 Royal Artillery Association 18
5 Royal Engineers Association 37
6 Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal Association 65 Anniversary
7 Airborne Engineers Association 24
8 Royal Signals Association 48
9 Army Air Corps Association 42
10 Royal Army Service Corps & Royal Corps Transport Assoc 54
11 RAOC Association 18
12 Army Catering Corps Association 48
13 Royal Pioneer Corps Association 54 Anniversary
14 Royal Army Medical Corps Association 36
15 Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers Association 48
16 Royal Military Police Association 100
17 The RAEC and ETS Branch Association 12
18 Royal Army Pay Corps Regimental Association 36
19 Royal Army Veterinary Corps & Royal Army Dental Corps 18
20 Royal Army Physical Training Corps 24
21 Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps Assoc 48
22 Royal Scots Dragoon Guards 30
23 Royal Dragoon Guards 78
24 Queen's Royal Hussars (The Queen's Own & Royal Irish) 12
25 Kings Royal Hussars Regimental Association 126
26 16/5th Queen's Royal Lancers 36
27 17/21 Lancers 30
28 The Royal Lancers 24 New for 2015
29 JLR RAC Old Boys' Association 30
30 Association of Ammunition Technicians 24
31 Beachley Old Boys Association 36
32 Arborfield Old Boys Association 25
33 Gallipoli & Dardenelles International 24
34 Special Observers Association 24
35 The Parachute Squadron Royal Armoured Corps 24 New
36 Intelligence Corps Association 48
37 Women's Royal Army Corps Association 120
38 656 Squadron Association 24
39 Home Guard Association 9
40 British Resistance Movement (Coleshill Research Team) 12
41 British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association 48
42 British Ex-Services Wheelchair Sports Association 24
43 Royal Hospital Chelsea 30
44 Queen Alexandra's Hospital Home for Disabled Ex-Servicemen & Women 30
45 The Royal Star & Garter Homes 20
46 Combat Stress 48
Total 1,754
Column C
Marker Detachment Number
1 Royal Air Force Association 150
2 Royal Air Force Regiment Association 300
3 Royal Air Forces Ex-Prisoner's of War Association 20
4 Royal Observer Corps Association 75 Anniversary
5 National Service (Royal Air Force) Association 42
6 RAFLING Association 24
7 6 Squadron (Royal Air Force) Association 18
8 7 Squadron Association 25
9 8 Squadron Association 24
10 RAF Habbaniya Association 25
11 Royal Air Force & Defence Fire Services Association 30
12 Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Association 30
13 Units of the Far East Air Force 28 New
14 Royal Air Force Yatesbury Association 16
15 Royal Air Force Airfield Construction Branch Association 12
16 RAFSE(s) Assoc 45 New
17 Royal Air Force Movements and Mobile Air Movements Squadron Association (RAF MAMS) 24
18 Royal Air Force Masirah & Salalah Veterans Assoc 24 New
19 WAAF/WRAF/RAF(W) 25
19 Blenheim Society 18
20 Coastal Command & Maritime Air Association 24
21 Air Sea Rescue & Marine Craft Sections Club 15
22 Federation of RAF Apprentice & Boy Entrant Assocs 150
23 Royal Air Force Air Loadmasters Association 24
24 Royal Air Force Police Association 90
25 Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service Association 40
Total 1,298
Column D
Marker Detachment Number
1 Not Forgotten Association 54
2 Stoll 18
3 Ulster Defence Regiment 72
4 Army Dog Unit Northern Ireland Association 48
5 North Irish Horse & Irish Regiments Old Comrades Association 78
6 Northern Ireland Veterans' Association 40
7 Irish United Nations Veterans Association 12
8 ONET UK 10
9 St Helena Government UK 24
10 South Atlantic Medal Association 196
11 SSAFA 37
12 First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteers Corps) 12
13 Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen & Women 48
14 British Nuclear Test Veterans Association 48
15 War Widows Association 132
16 Gurkha Brigade Association 160 Anniversary
17 British Gurkha Welfare Society 100 Anniversary
18 West Indian Association of Service Personnel 18
19 Trucial Oman Scouts Association 18
20 Bond Van Wapenbroeders 35
21 Polish Ex-Combatants Association in Great Britain 25
22 Stowarzyszenie Polskich Kombatantów Limited 18 New
23 Royal Hong Kong Regiment Association 12
24 Canadian Veterans Association 10
25 Hong Kong Ex-Servicemen's Association (UK Branch) 24
26 Hong Kong Military Service Corps 28
27 Foreign Legion Association 24
28 Undivided Indian Army Ex Servicemen Association 11 New
Total 1,312
Column E
Marker Detachment Number
1 Royal Marines Association 198
2 Royal Naval Association 150
3 Merchant Navy Association 130
4 Sea Harrier Association 24
5 Flower Class Corvette Association 18
6 HMS Andromeda Association 18
7 HMS Argonaut Association 30
8 HMS Bulwark, Albion & Centaur Association 25
9 HMS Cumberland Association 18
10 HMS Ganges Association 48
11 HMS Glasgow Association 30
12 HMS St Vincent Association 26
13 HMS Tiger Association 25
14 Algerines Association 20
15 Ton Class Association 24
16 Type 42 Association 48
17 Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service 36
18 Association of WRENS 90
19 Royal Fleet Auxiliary Association 10
20 Royal Naval Communications Association 30
21 Royal Naval Medical Branch Ratings & Sick Berth Staff Association 24
22 Royal Naval Benevolent Trust 18
23 Yangtze Incident Association 24
24 Special Boat Service Association 6
25 Submariners Association 30
26 Association of Royal Yachtsmen 30
27 Broadsword Association 36
28 Aircraft Handlers Association 36
29 Aircrewmans Association 40 Anniversary
30 Cloud Observers Association 10
31 The Fisgard Association 40
32 Fleet Air Arm Armourers Association 36
33 Fleet Air Arm Association 25
34 Fleet Air Arm Bucaneer Association 24
35 Fleet Air Arm Field Gun Association 24
36 Fleet Air Arm Junglie Association 18
37 Fleet Air Arm Officers Association 30
38 Fleet Air Arm Safety Equipment & Survival Association 24
39 Royal Navy School of Physical Training 24
Total 1,497
Column F
Marker Detachment Number
1 Blind Veterans UK 198
2 Far East Prisoners of War 18
3 Burma Star Association 40
4 Monte Cassino Society20
5 Queen's Bodyguard of The Yeoman of The Guard 18
6 Pen and Sword Club 15
7 TRBL Ex-Service Members 301
8 The Royal British Legion Poppy Factory 4
9 The Royal British Legion Scotland 24
10 Officers Association 5
11 Black and White Club 18
12 National Pigeon War Service 30
13 National Service Veterans Alliance 50
14 Gallantry Medallists League 46
15 National Malaya & Borneo Veterans Association 98
16 National Gulf Veterans & Families Association 30
17 Fellowship of the Services 100
18 Memorable Order of Tin Hats 24
19 Suez Veterans Association 50
20 Aden Veterans Association 72
21 1st Army Association 36
22 Showmens' Guild of Great Britain 40
23 Special Forces Club 12
24 The Spirit of Normandy Trust 28
25 Italy Star Association, 1943-1945, 48
Total 1,325
Column A
Marker Detachment Number
1 1LI Association 36
2 Royal Green Jackets Association 198
3 Parachute Regimental Association 174
4 King's Own Scottish Borderers 60
5 Black Watch Association 45
6 Gordon Highlanders Association 60
7 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Regimental Association 12
8 Queen's Own Highlanders Regimental Association 48
9 London Scottish Regimental Association 30
10 Grenadier Guards Association 48
11 Coldstream Guards Association 48
12 Scots Guards Association 48
13 Guards Parachute Association 36
14 4 Company Association (Parachute Regiment) 24
15 Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment 72
16 Royal East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) Past & Present Association 30
17 Prince of Wales' Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians) Regimental Association 24
18 Royal Hampshire Regiment Comrades Association 14
19 The Royal Hampshire Regimental Club 24 New for 2015
20 Royal Northumberland Fusiliers 48 New
21 Royal Sussex Regimental Association 12
22 Green Howards Association 24
23 Cheshire Regiment Association 24
24 Sherwood Foresters & Worcestershire Regiment 36
25 Mercian Regiment Association 30
26 Special Air Service Regimental Association 4
27 The King's Own Royal Border Regiment 100
28 The Staffordshire Regiment 48
29 Rifles Regimental Association 40
30 The Rifles & Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire & Wiltshire Regimental Association 30
31 Durham Light Infantry Association 60
32 King's Royal Rifle Corps Association 50
33 King's African Rifles 14 New for 2015
Total 1,551
Column M
Marker Detachment Number
1 Transport For London 48
2 Children of the Far East Prisoners of War 60
3 First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteers Corps) 24
4 Munitions Workers Association18
5 Evacuees Reunion Association48
6 TOC H 20
7 Salvation Army 36
8 Naval Canteen Service & Expeditionary Force Institutes Association 12 Previously NAAFI
9 Royal Voluntary Service 24
10 Civil Defence Association 8
11 National Association of Retired Police Officers 36
12 Metropolitan Special Constabulary 36
13 London Ambulance Service NHS Trust 36
14 London Ambulance Service Retirement Association 18
15 St John Ambulance 36
16 British Red Cross 12
17 St Andrew's Ambulance Association 6
18 The Firefighters Memorial Trust 24
19 Royal Ulster Constabulary (GC) Association 36
20 Ulster Special Constabulary Association 30
21 Commonwealth War Graves Commission 12
22 Daniel's Trust 36
23 Civilians Representing Families 180
24 Royal Mail Group Ltd 24
25 Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 24
26 The Blue Cross 24
27 PDSA 24
28 HM Ships Glorious Ardent & ACASTA Association 24 Anniversary
29 Old Cryptians' Club 12
30 Fighting G Club 18 Anniversary
31 Malayan Volunteers Group 12
32 Gallipoli Association 18
33 Ministry of Defence 20
34 TRBL Non Ex-Service Members 117
35 TRBL Women's Section 20
36 Union Jack Club 12
37 Western Front Association 8
38 Shot at Dawn Pardons Campaign 18
39 Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes 24
40 National Association of Round Tables 24
41 Lions Club International 24
42 Rotary International 24
43 41 Club 6
44 Equity 12
45 Romany & Traveller Society 18
46 Sea Cadet Corps 30
47 Combined Cadet Force 30
48 Army Cadet Force 30
49 Air Training Corps 30
50 Scout Association 30
51 Girlguiding London & South East England 30
52 Boys Brigade 30
53 Girls Brigade England & Wales 30
54 Church Lads & Church Girls Brigade 30
55 Metropolitan Police Volunteer Police Cadets 18
56 St John Ambulance Cadets 18
57 YMCA 12
Total 1,621