Remembrance Sunday: Britain falls silent as Queen leads commemorations

The Queen is leading the nation in remembering members of the armed forces killed in conflict.

Crowds are gathering for the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London – the focal point of the UK’s Remembrance Sunday services – where she will lay a wreath.

Events are being held across the UK and abroad, including in Afghanistan.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One, 70 years since the D-Day landings and the end of Britain’s conflict in Afghanistan.

David Cameron said the anniversaries made the commemorations “particularly poignant”.

Security is visibly tighter in central London this year.

Scotland Yard said there would be “appropriate and proportionate” policing at the Cenotaph after four men were arrested on Thursday in west London and High Wycombe in connection with an alleged Islamist terrorism plot on British soil.

Gen Sir Nicholas Houghton, Chief of the Defence Staff, said celebrations would have a “different feel this year”.

He told the Andrew Marr Show the anniversary of the start of WW1 and the D-Day landings, as well as the withdrawal of UK troops from Afghanistan, meant there would be added “intensity” and “poignancy” to events.

He also said “the proximity of the sense of threat for this weekend” had “intensified” security levels.

But “we’ve just got to keep continuing our normal life,” he said.

“The last thing that we at all would want to do is succumb to any sense that there is a terrorist threat there that is at all going to stop the British way of life.”

Mr Cameron said: “Today we stand united to remember the courageous men and women who have served our country, defended our freedoms and kept us safe.

“We remember all those who have fallen and those who have risked their lives to protect us.

“We owe each and every member of our armed forces and the families who support them a tremendous debt – one that can never be repaid – and I pay huge tribute to their bravery and resolve.”

The Queen will be joined by the Duke of Edinburgh for the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, along with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, and the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

After dusk falls, images of falling poppies are to be projected on to Big Ben, officially known as Parliament’s Elizabeth Tower.

On Saturday, the Queen and other members of the Royal Family joined veterans and the public at the Royal British Legion’s annual Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Elsewhere on Sunday, a service will also be held at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

In Glasgow, a two-minute silence will be observed at the cenotaph in George Square, while in Edinburgh a parade will take place from the castle esplanade to the city’s stone of remembrance.

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond will be among those laying wreaths, and a ceremonial gun will be fired.

In Wales, the national service will take place at the Welsh National War Memorial in Cardiff.

And Secretary of State Theresa Villiers will lay a wreath on behalf of the government at the Cenotaph at Belfast City Hall.

Meanwhile, the National Secular Society has written to the government asking it to review the role of the Church of England at the national ceremony of remembrance, which it argues should be equally inclusive of all citizens, regardless of religion and belief.

The society believes the commemoration should be redesigned to make it an inclusive national event, not led by a single Christian denomination.

Earlier this week, David Cameron announced that a key part of the World War One poppy display at the Tower of London is to remain in place until the end of November.

The installation of ceramic poppies, entitled Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red, is to be dismantled on 12 November.

But the Wave segment will now stay in place until the end of the month before being sent on a tour across the UK until 2018, when it will be joined by the installation’s Weeping Window segment.

(BBC)