Sunday November 11th 2018

I thought I knew which image I'd use today. For today is the 100th Anniversary of the First World War Armistice. Officially the war did not end, but a cease fire was put in place for the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month in Europe, which today the official time is actually 10.11 GMT. The Armistice was actually signed at 05.40 hrs on the 11th of November. The last British soldier to die was believed to be at 09.30 hrs, the last person to die from France at 10.50 hrs, and from Germany Henry Gunther died at 10.59 hrs. 60 seconds from peace and that life wiped out. Half the time it takes to sit in silence for 2 minutes today. Within the intervening 5 hours from that signing in the early hours and it's coming into into force, over 2000 soldiers on both sides died in what has been described as some of the most intense fighting of the entire conflict, as each side tried to gain the best political advantage before the 11th hour on the 11th Day. A scale of death which we can not imagine today, and 2000 + deaths which could have been avoided if the Armistice had come into force at the time of its signatory creation.

And I thought of this and more as I opened the curtains this morning and was greeted by a rainbow. I sat for a while, watching and thinking. Thinking of the mostly male soldiers (for it has emerged there were a few female soldiers in Eastern Europe especially), the many females on war service and civilians in Europe who would look up at a rainbow no more. I recorded an Armistice Tweet of the Day with Derek Niemann a few weeks ago, and he talked about the soldiers who listened to skylarks. Those who were birdwatchers simply enjoying the skylark song in that maelstrom of battle, yet for those who were not birdwatchers, they heard the bird as a symbol of death. For to hear that bright twinkling song, meant only one thing, a lull in the sheer noise of bombardment and an avian signal that the order was about to be made, to go over the top.

So I thought of the skylark song as I looked out of the window. In peacetime a joyous part of the natural world, yet 100 years ago for many in the trenches, the skylark song became a symbol of morte.