In Flanders fields the poppies blow
1918. 11am, the 11th day of the 11th month. Paris.
A gunshot. This time not of hostility, but a tentative announcement of peace. The Armistice has just come into effect. People are told that fighting on the Western Front will now cease. Flags are flying, bells ringing and the news hesitantly welcomed that, four years late, it will at last all be "over by Christmas."
In Flanders fields the poppies blow.
2014. 11pm, the 11th day of the 11th month. London.
For three-quarters of an hour previously I have been sitting, silently, as my District Line train trundled eastwards. Like millions of others, I am now stood before a river of 888,246 blood-red, ceramic poppies that flow through the moat of the Tower of London. Floodlit and rising from the mud, each represents a British or Commonwealth life lost. The overwhelming scale of the waste of life is met by a eerily respectful hush. People take photos. People shed tears. People wear poppies.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow.
