《闲话英伦》－11月的英国街头为何开满“罂粟花”？

Britain under the Microscope – Remembrance Sunday

·      This year marks a special anniversary – 100 years after the First World War

·     11th November 1918 – “The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month” – the armistice between the Allies (Britain, France, America and Italy) and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in northern France. 

·      Why is this war remembered so much in the UK?

o  Around 900,000 or a million British people were killed 

o  It is still sometimes known as the Great War

o  Now Remembrance Sunday is for all soldiers who have died in war (including the Second World War)

o  The First World War started in August 1914 – many people thought it would be over by Christmas.

o  The war lasted 4 years.

o  Most of the fighting involving Britain was on the Western Front (France and Belgium)

o  Many soldiers volunteered into “Pal’s battalions” – men from the same town or village – often they all died together.

o  Soldiers lived and fought in trenches – they would attack each other by “going over the top”

o  This was the first war to use poison gas and tanks.

o  The sad thing was people believed that this was “the war to end all wars”

·      How do people commemorate the First World War

o  Lots of British people will buy and wear red poppies – it is said that these were the only flowers that could grow in the battlefields. 

o  On Remembrance Sunday – there will be a national service at the Cenotaph in central London. 

·      Is it only in London it is commemorated?

o  There are other services around the country – almost every town or village has its own war memorial with the names of everyone who died in that town or village written on it. 

·      What happens at the ceremony?

o  Wreathes of poppies will be laid at the monument.

o  There is a two-minute silence at 11:00 – trains and buses will generally stop and people will stop. 

o  Often this verse from a famous poem is recited;

§  “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

o  The Last Post will be played