Sunday 14 November 2010

Bits and pieces

This is a rather peculiar weekend in some ways with both celebrations and commemorations taking place. The main celebration took place in London yesterday morning - the Lord Mayor's Show. Luckily, the weather was reasonably fine for it. It always seems a little - odd, shall I say? - that the day after the razzamatazz of the Lord Mayor's Show is Remembrance Day. Up until 1964, Remembrance Day in the UK was 11 November but since then it has been on the nearest Sunday, which is, of course, today. There is a fairly strong movement for the occasion to be moved back. Certainly, many, many people across the country observe the two minute silence at 11am on 11 November. Even buses and taxis stopped in Trafalgar square on Thursday.

Every year, on the Saturday before Remembrance Day, the Royal British Legion's Festival of Remembrance is held in the Royal Albert Hall. I'm not ashamed to admit that my eyes are never dry when representatives of the war widows take there places.

I have been watching this morning's commemorations at the Cenotaph on my lap top and have been moved tremendously by an interview with the widow of a bomb disposal officer killed in Afghanistan - one of only a handful of men ever to have been awarded the George Medal twice. His 10-year-old son was also there, proudly wearing his father's medals. Asked why it was important for him to be there, he replied, 'To show how proud I am of my father'.

There has also been some very good news this weekend. It was announced yesterday evening that Aung San Suu Kyi had been released from house arrest in Burma (or Myanmar as it is called nowadays) and this morning we hear that a British couple captured and held hostage for more than a year by Somali pirates have also been freed.

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