ARMISTICE DAY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 28, 12 November 1936, Page 5

ARMISTICE DAY

THE OBSERVANCE IN LONDON. AN IMPRESSIVE CEREMONY. KING HONOURS THE DEAD. (United Press Association-Copyright.) (Received This Day, 1.55 a.m.) ’ LONDON, November 11. .No Armistice Day ceremony has equalled in impressiveness London’s stillness to-day, when the pulse of the greatest city in the world was stilled by tlie customary) two-minutes’ silence. The surge of sound when the vast city boiled into activity again was almost as impressive as the silence. Even the trans-channel air pilots took part in the silence by throttling hack the engines and dipping the machines in a salute to the fallen.

The King, who appeared lor the first time at this great public assemblage as monarch, left Buckingham Palace in an Admiral’s undress uniform for the ‘Cenotaph at 10.35. Queen Mary, robed in black and accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke and Duchess of York, drove to the scene and seated herself at a window overlooking the crowded Whitehall. As eleven began to chime maroons sounded, a gun thudded from the Horse Guards Parade. The observance of the traditional ceremonies proceeded • with devout, majestic calm, yearly repetition being powerless to render commonplace so. great a homage. The Guards Band played solemn music until the King, attended by the Dukes of York and Kent, with the Bishop of London, with bowed head behind him', placed a wreath on London’s most significant memorial, fhe King stepped back and stood motionless at attention as the silence spread through bis Dominions. Suddenly the Last Post roused London from its dream. The singing of “O God Our Help In Ages Past” followed. The Reveille was sounded, after which the Bishop’s blessing was sounded to the nation’s “Amen.”

Mr Stanley Bruce (High Commissioner for Australia and Mr W. J. Jordan (High Commissioner for New Zealand) placed a wreath on the Cenotaph on behalf of their respective countries. Mr Walter Nash and his wife were present as guests of Mr Malcolm MacDonald. Lady Mackenzie, wife of Sir Clutha Mackenzie, who was. blinded in the war, marched to the Cenotaph with a contingent of Y.A.D.’s and laid a wreath on it on behalf of New Zealand ex-servicemen who were blinded. Leicester miners, stripped to the waist, observed the silence 1000 feet below the surface. All lights were extinguished and machinery stopped. A. Socialist speaker at Edinburgh was mobbed by a crowd for ignoring the signal for silence. TRIBUTE TO MARSHAL FOCH. “GREAT SOLDIER AND FRIEND.” (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, November 11. At the foot of Marshal Foch’s statue in Grosvenor Square, General Sir Frederick Maurice (president of the Foreign Legion) placed a wreath of poppies decorated with tricolour ribbons and jearing the inscription: “In proud memory of a great soldier and a good friend to ex-servicemen.” —British Offijial Wireless.

THE FRENCH CEREMONIAL. CHILDREN TAKE PART IN PARIS. (Received This Day, 10.50 a.m.) PARIS, November 11. For the first time children took part in the Armistice ceremonies in France( hoys and girls filing past the President at the Unknown 'Soldier’s Tomb at the Arc de Triomphe, in precisely the same tvayi as did the troops of the Paris garrison. The Bishop of Arras celebrated midnight Communion at the Notre Dame de Lorette, dominating the great Flanders cemetery where lie French, British and German dead. Torches, lit respectively on the graves of the Unknown Soldiers in Paris and Brussels, were borne by ex-combatants from one capital to the other across the battlfields. The colour of the poppies sold in Paris was changed, because of political considerations, from red to yellow. Many people declined to wear yellow. FASCISTS AND COMMUNISTS. UNITY AT GIBRALTAR SERVICE. (Received This Day, 10.50 a.m.) GIBRALTAR, November 11. Spanish Fascists mingled with Spanish Communists and Syndicalists at the Armistice celebrations. Thousands of refugees of all shades of political opinion stood side by side watching the ceremony at the Cross of Sacrifice.