MAJESTIC CALM

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 42, 13 November 1936, Page 9

MAJESTIC CALM

Two Minutes’ Silence

In Britain

HOMAGE TO WAR DEAD Impressive Ceremony at Cenotaph By Telegraph—i’ress Assn.— Copyrigh. London, November 11. No Armistice Day ceremony has equalled in impressiveness London’s stillness to-day, when the pulse of Hie greatest city in the world was stilled for the customary two minutes’ silence. 'J’lie surge of sound when the vast city boiled into activity again was almost as impressive as the silence. Even the pilots of aeroplanes crossing the Channel took part in the silence by throttling back their engines and dipping their machines in the salute to the fallen. The King, who appeared for the first time in this great public assemblage as the Monarch, left Buckingham Palace in admiral’s undress uniform for the Cenotaph at 10.35 a.m. 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 11 o’clock began to chime maroons sounded and a gun thudded from the Horse Guards Parade. 1110 observance of the traditional ceremonies proceeded with devout and majestic calm, the yearly repetition being powerless to render commonplace so great a homage. King Places Wreath. *A Guards band played solemn music until the King, attended by the Duke of York and the Duke of Kent, with the Bishop of London, his head bowed, behind him, placed a wreath on London’s most significant memorial. The King stepped back and stood motionless at attention as the silence spread through hig Dominions. Suddenly the “Last Bost” roused London from its dream, and the singing of “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,’’ followed. “The Reveille” was sounded, after which the bishop’s blessing sounded the nation’s “Amen.”

Mr. Stanley Bruce (Australia) and Mr. W. J. Jordan (New Zealand) placed wreaths on the Cenotaph on behalf of their respective countries. The New Zealand Minister of Finance (Mr. Nash) and his wife were present as guests of the Dominions Secretary. A New Zealander, Lady Mackenzie, wife of Sir Clutha Mackenzie, who was blinded in the war, marched to the Cenotaph with a contingent of V.A.D.’s and laid a wreath on the memorial on behalf of New Zealand exsoldiers who were blinded.

Leicestershire miners, stripped to the waist, observed the silence 1000 feet underground. All lights were extinguished and the machinery was stopped.

A Socialist speaker at Edinburgh was mobbed .by a crowd for ignoring the silence -'signal. PEACE IN OUR TIME Earnest Prayer of Crowds in Whitehall FIELD OF REMEMBRANCE (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, November 11. Every town, village, and hamlet throughout Britain celebrated Armistice Day, and the two-minutes silence was, as usual, universally observed.

In London there were vast congregations at the church services, many of which were relayed by loudspeaker to crowds outside, and at central points city workers left the shops, warehouses, and offices to join in the silent homage to those who fell in the war. The crowds were densest in Whitehall, round the Cenotaph. The words again suggested for thought and prayer in the brief interval of silence were: “In remembrance of those who made the great sacrifice, O God, make us better men and womer. and give us peace In our time.” The passage of the years has made them no less appropriate. The ceremonial at the Cenotaph followed its solemn and moving precedent. But to-day King Edward was the chief figure there—not for the first time, since before now lie had represented his father at the Cenotaph, but for the first time as King. The Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Attlee, the Speaker of the House of Commons, members of Cabinet, the High Commissioners of India and the self-governing Dominions, together with - representatives of the defence forces, the merchant navy, and the fishing fleets, and of religious denominations were also in the principal group.

At the conclusion of the ceremony a pilgrimage began to the Cenotaph, the base of which was hanked high with flowers, and to the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, upon which many floral tributes were reverently laid.

As is usual on Armistice Day, the lawns on the north side of Westminster Abbey were set aside as a Field of Remembrance in which miniature crosses and imitation Flanders poppies were planted in memory of the fallen. Despite the rain, a vast crowd visited the Field of Remembrance, which, with the facade of the Abbey, was floodlit to-night. At the foot of the Marshal Foch statue in Grosvenor Gardens General Sir Frederick Maurice, president of the British Legion, this morning placed a wreath of poppies decorated with tricolour ribbons and bearing the inscription : “In proud memory of a great soldier and a good friend to ex-service-men.” HIS FATHER’S MEMORY King Edward Places Cross in Field of Poppies

London, November 11.

In pouring rain, and a few minutes after the Field of Remembrance and ■Westminster Abbey had been floodlit, the King arrived unnoticed and unheralded and planted a plain wooden cross Inscribed “To the memory of His Majesty King George V” in the middle of the plot of poppies dedicated to those who died In the service of the Empire. Women who brushed slowly by were unaware of his identity and

the first to make the discovery were children.

After standing bare-beaded, the King walked along the pathways by the side of the field, trudging ' with the other mourners through pools of water and bending down with them to examine the "miniature field” of poppies set in the form of a cross. Then he entered an ambulance in which Major D. Hovftson, chairman of the British Legion poppy factory, was lying. Major Howson, on whom a severe operation was performed in August, had insisted on being brought to the field, as he was prominent in starting it in 1928. The King asked after his health and then chatted with ex-servicemen selling poppies, bought two, and put a bundle notes in the collection box. Before leaving, His Majesty placed a poppy on a tiny cross in the field a* the entrance of the Abbey. As he entered his car the crowd surged around, necessitating police control. Later a notice was, placed in front of the King’s cross indicating that lie had planted it. Many '.visitors took popples from their buttonholes and placed them alongside. DRAMATIC MOMENT King Recites Binyon’s Poignant Lines (Received November 12, 9.15 p.m.)

London, November 11.

There was a dramatic moment at the great British Legion festival at the Albert Hall, when the King, standing alone in the Royal box, recited the poignant verse from Laurence Binyon’s poem beginning: “They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. . .

It was the first time since the Armistice that a reigning monarch has publicly recited this verse. Binyon, occupying the adjoining box, heard the King recite his lines. EXCHANGE OF TORCHES Observance in France , Paris, November 11. Children for the first time participated in the Armistice ceremonies in France, boys and girls filing past the President at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe, in the same way as did the troops of the Paris garrison. Tbe Bishop of Arras celebrated midnight Communion at 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 excombatants from one capital to the other across the battlefields.

The colour of the poppies sold in Paris was changed, because of political considerations, from red to yellow and many people declined to wear the yellow emblems. FACTIONS MINGLE

Spaniards at Gibraltar

Gibraltar, November 11

Spanish Fascists mingled _ with Spanish Communists and Syndicalists in the Armistice Day celebrations. Thousands of refugees of all shades of political opinion stood' side by side watching the ceremony at the Cross of Sacrifice