11.11.2014

I had a great night’s sleep and was down in the dining room for breakfast by 8.30am. I had a decent full English and can definitely recommend the Penn Club for a basic but comfortable and reasonably priced place to stay in central London, and being right behind the British Museum (my favourite of the big museums) is a bonus.

I headed out via the tube to Whitehall at 9.30am. Each year on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month since 1994, The Western Front Association, whose aims are to educate the public about and remember those who fought in the First World War, holds a service at the cenotaph. I have been going for about 12 years now, though I have missed a couple. I arrived at about 10am and immediately found my old friend J there. I was hoping to meet some more old friends but it was just J and me in the end.

We milled about with other liked minded members at the muster point just behind HMRC in King Charles Street and watched the soldiers and bands preparing themselves and we caught up on news.

We saw David Cameron wander down with just a few colleagues, very low key. The PM never usually attends this service and so I guess it is the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War that attracted him this year. I did get some decent shots of him during the service but my chosen blip is more relevant to me. On any other day he’d have made it.

Whitehall as usual was packed by 11am. We all marched out and I got a great view of proceedings from my vantage point at the end of a line (next to the professional photographers) as you can see from my blip. The last post, Big Ben’s chimes, the two minute silence and the lone piper were particularly moving. I find the silent ‘sleeping’ reverse saluting soldiers to be most affecting and one of them became my blip.

I am always struck by being at the physical centre and focus of the nation's consciousness at 11am on 11th November each year. This year, I also thought about the Canadian solider killed recently while guarding their tomb of the unknown solider.

After we walked through the park to the Guards Chapel for the WFA’s annual service of remembrance at which Professor Gary Sheffield gave the address, his usual fare of revisionist history. Not nearly as good as General Lord Richard Dannatt’s a few years back though.

Then I walked J down the road to New Scotland Yard, where she was joining with other WFA members for their annual dinner in Scotland Yard’s restaurant, Peelers. There I left her and went on to the Tower of London via tube to brave the crowds of thousands to take photos of the poppies. Again, on any other day one of those moving images, would have been my blip, but not today.

I got a bite to eat and then took the tube back to Euston, caught a fast train home and arrived back at about 4pm. All in all a super trip and a thought provoking day.

Oh and the best news of the day… I got a call from the agent who is looking for jobs for me to say that a firm I’m interested in would like to see me in the next week or so. Fingers crossed for that as I do know various people there and would be very keen to join them, especially after yesterday’s episode, which made me realise that life is too short to work with idiots!