National Ceremony in The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom national ceremony is held in London at the Cenotaph on Whitehall and, since 2002, also at the Women's Memorial. Wreaths are laid by Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Princess Royal, the Duke of Kent, the Earl of Wessex, the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Harry of Wales, the Prime Minister, leaders of major political parties and former Prime Ministers, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the Commonwealth High Commissioners and representatives from the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, the Merchant Navy and fishing fleets and the civilian services. Two minutes' silence is held at 11 a.m., before the laying of the wreaths. The silence represents the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, when the guns of Europe fell silent. 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 event consists mainly of an extensive march past, with army bands playing live music, each year following the list of the Traditional Music of Remembrance (see below).
Other members of the British Royal Family watch from the balcony of the Foreign Office.
After the ceremony, a parade of veterans, organised by the Royal British Legion, marches past the Cenotaph, each section of which lays a wreath as it passes.
Read more about this topic: Remembrance Sunday
Famous quotes containing the words national, ceremony, united and/or kingdom:
“Disney World has acquired by now something of the air of a national shrine. American parents who don’t take their children there sense obscurely that they have failed in some fundamental way, like Muslims who never made it to Mecca.”
—Simon Hoggart (b. 1946)
“We want beans, not goals.”
—Mexican steelworkers’ banner at opening ceremony of 1986 World Cup soccer championship.
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)