2 minute silence

Did you observe a 2 minute silence at 11:00 today?

  • Yes

    Votes: 73 73.0%
  • No

    Votes: 25 25.0%
  • Eh?

    Votes: 2 2.0%

  • Total voters
    100
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Yes, (was leaving work at the time too) Also on Sunday 9th Sainsbury's also held 2 min silence, so I had to stop shopping and all the till staff and shelf stackers stopped too, weird being so quiet, then all beep beep beep again after.
 
Nope, I couldnt as I had to man the phone. It was the busiest 20mins of the day aswell, whats that all about?
 
Yep, everything on the rugby pitched just stopped.
 
Finished our meeting in time just in time for a suitably austere voice over the tannoy - whole building (several 1000s) observed.
 
we also got a tannoy announcement and the entire floor -- open plan about 600 odd people, went totally silent. No talking, no typing, nothing. It was quite moving.
On Sunday, when there were only about 4 of us in the office when they did the 2mins silence the woman next to me stood up! -- that was more weird than moving!
 
Observed it at school. Good to also see 12 year olds being quiet and being respectful
 
fire alarm went off in the office to mark the beginning of the start 11:00
 
I think its important that we do, thankfully our work place did. I thought long and hard about what happened back in WW1 and whether I would be willing to make the same sacrifice for this country as so many people did in the past. I asked myself whether I felt UK PLC was worth sacrificing my life for, and whether it was in the past. Hazard a guess at the answers I arrived at. Thats another sad part of 11/11.

Its a part of our heritage and culture and I am glad to hear of so many people that did acknowledge it.
 
We observed it in Portsmouth dockyard we all went into the car park, and a short blessing was said and the 2 minutes were marked by a firing cannon, and quartermaster pipes from all the ships in harbour.
It was quite moving as most people i work with are ex Royal Navy at least six of them were on ships sunk in the Falklands conflict.
Those who have fallen, their sacrifice must never be forgotten.
 
No, I was oblivious. Glad my employer didn't tell me to find another office to work in.

Good poll.
 
We remember

My family fought for the 'other side'. Still I remember the 3 sons that went to war, with only one returning, the family homestead that was lost to the Russians, and the high price and sacrifices paid by the 'common people' of all sides at times of conflict.
 
I was in Southampton when the million poppies were dropped onto the deck of the QE2. Actually missed the deck because of the breeze, but the moment was not lost.
 
Having lost two of my school mates in Vietnam I always pay respect for those who die in any war. The old men still send the young off to die. Wilfred Owen got it exactly right.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori

Wilfred Owen
 
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I found it very moving hearing about Harry Patch, one of the last remaining WW1 veterans left and a local lad. The piece on local news said that he only ever spoke about the conflict when he was 100, such was the remembered pain. He recently visited Flanders and insisted on laying a cross at both the Allied and German cemeteries. A shared tragedy, as it were. A huge gesture for a man with so much lost back then.

To my shame, I nearly missed the 2mins on Sunday, was just coming out of a class at the gym and the TV was on BBC1. Luckily the Last Post was only just starting. I stood with 2 of the instructors heads bowed.

To be honest I was rather annoyed at the rest of the gym- Carrying on as usual, machines beeping away, people filling water bottles in front of us, clearly standing for the silence. It's not difficult to take 2mins out of the day.

Almost the whole of our office went out the front of the building to observe the silence today. The couple of people who stayed inside (For reasons of laziness rather than urgent work) were noted.
 
Intersting the comments regarding fire alarms sounding at 11.00.

Our usual test is 11.00 on Tuesdays, but it was done 5 minutes early so as not to clash with the silence.
 
My family fought for the 'other side'. Still I remember the 3 sons that went to war, with only one returning, the family homestead that was lost to the Russians, and the high price and sacrifices paid by the 'common people' of all sides at times of conflict.
My wife is German and we both had relatives that fought and died on both sides. On my wife's side the cost paid was far, far higher.
I now think it is time to turn the page.
Watching the British TV in the last week I found it was more political than commenorating; reminding people of British losses, British hardship and bolstering people for future resolve and commitment. It strikes me as strange that although Britain has been in many wars against just about everybody we only choose to remember and focus on the last two major events. In Germany they are not allowed to remember. There is no equivalent of poppies, no parades, no uniting in grief.
If this were to be true Remembrance we would be united in that we substantially have peace in Europe, we should share our grief with past enemies and allies in resolve that we do not want to do this again.
My wife and her relatives ask why we keep mentioning the War and why we feel we need to emphasise the past rather than the future.
 
To be honest I was rather annoyed at the rest of the gym- Carrying on as usual, machines beeping away, people filling water bottles in front of us, clearly standing for the silence. It's not difficult to take 2mins out of the day.

Almost the whole of our office went out the front of the building to observe the silence today. The couple of people who stayed inside (For reasons of laziness rather than urgent work) were noted.

Noted for what? So you could tut or feel mightier than them or for some other reason?

Previously in this I read of someone that doesn't want people who took a 2 minute silence at their workplace, indicating they could or would dispose of them.

I think it's right we educate people about war past and present wars. My schooling was absolutley lacking in history lessons from 11-16 - didn't seem to be on the curriculum unless you chose it which I didn't in favour of Geography which seemed to be practically more useful and more interesting to me as was slighly scientific. So apart from a vague recollection of William the Conquerer from my junior shcooling (pre 11 years) I know nothing of any battles since!

Yes I have some concept of WWI and WWII and yes if prompted or I realised at the time, I would take a 2 minute silence. It would seem, to my morals, the right thing to do. We had no announcement this year in the office (not sure why, indeed I may ask) so I was oblivious. Maybe we did have it but I was so much in my own world (has been known) I was one of those ones just carrying on. I am more likely to have an opinion of people thinking they can think ill of me if I was unawares or didn't realise as to be honest it's not a date I could tell you off the top of my head and unlikely to ever be.

This is bound to be contraversial and I don't wish to take anything away from those who do show their respects more religiously and beleive me I am glad there is hopefully a majority (as this poll shows) that do.

However think twice before you judge anyone you didn't see taking part. Unless people were taught about events such that they have a significant understanding as to what they are showing their sincere sympathies for, there is no point in just telling them to, making them to or having them do it falsely.
 
Having lost two of my school mates in Vietnam I always pay respect for those who die in any war. The old men still send the young off to die. Wilfred Owen got it exactly right.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori

Wilfred Owen

I have been researching one particuklar battle in deatil and one partiular area in even greater detail. I have walked the fields, driven the area, talked with people and read in extremis. The problem that I have is that it ends up not being about heroes it ends up in pure shocking horror, where men lose all contact with rationality, time, relationships, plans and where doing one's duty becomes a mere sideshow to survival in a hell of noise, explosions, death, the confusion of mind when caught in a minefield, teh machine guns start scything through you, teh artillery pounds your brain into complete numbness, where direction is anywhere to escape the hell, where isolation from everybody and everything is complete, where people don't jsut fall wounded or dead, where they are ripped apart and still manage to scream until they whimper away. If you managed to escape to cover, the noise still disorientates and shakes you continuously and then you hear the tanks coming, twisting and grinding away to destroy cover and men in their tracks and where the men are terrified, on their own, cannot call out to find their comrades unles they expose themselves.. This particular infantry section replaced 100% of its men around every two months.
I cannot support the process that groom the next generation to want to be heroes. We should by all means respect the dead but all the dead, in unity and with the aim of preventing such recurrences.
 

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