What do you do at 11:00 on Armistice Day ? I’m on nights again so will probably be tucked up in bed but normally,wherever I am I pull over for two minutes to remember them.Sadly I always seem to be very much in the minority.We can’t be in that much of a hurry,surely? 
I usually try to get to a local gathering organised by the local branch of the Royal British Legion. Failing that, I always stop work and observe the silence.
It’s a big thing here in France, and like other bank holidays always falls on the actual day, not the nearest Sunday.
Having said that, at the war memorial in the village although there is a good turnout I, at 62, am amongst the youngest. Two young lads always attend and one reads a short text but they are the great grandsons of the Chef des Anciens Combattants, the equivalent of the British Legion.
We meet outside the church but, in irreligious France there is no service or priests, and at 11 walk to the memorial a few steps away.
A fanfare is played on a tape recorder powered by a car battery, all the names on the memorial are read, each one followed by our chorus of ‘mort pour la France’, the silence, a short speech read by the mayor but written in Paris, then the Marseillaise and a slow walk to the village hall for the ‘vin d’honneur’. This is an array of liquid refreshment and nibbles laid out on long tables. Most of the old soldiers choose whisky (which to the horror I expect of Scots they mix with tonic) or pastis. My drink of choice is port which means I usually get buttonholed by the wife of the Chef who tries to make me drink more than I should 
, and then cajole me into finding English buyers for various plots of land she has an interest in.
The first year I attended I took Lira the greyhound with me and stood at the back. The mayor insisted that I bring her to the hall and not expecting the tradition had rather too much of the offerings. Lira led me back home up the hill 
.
A solemn occasion but a happy one with old friends together in celebration and the tales of the old boys about the war and village life in an earlier era are a pleasure to listen to. It is sobering though to know that many of these people were in the local resistance risking not only their own lives but those of their families and neighbours.
This year we will be slightly depleted, two old men have died in the last month, both I think, maquisards (resistance fighters, I am not sure because they don’t brag).
Faced with these heroes, perhaps I may be excused for getting angry at jibes about French courage and will to resist.
Sorry to go on so long, but the question was asked and for me it is either this or not to reply at all.
Salut, David.
I will be in bed too shortly and be asleep at 11 , my 6 year old son is a memeber of St, Jhons ambulance and he will be doing a parade on Sunday when they march to the Cenotaph i will be there as proud as most fathers whose children are involved.
My son was invited to a birthday party on Sunday at 11am-1pm i amsed him which he would rather do and he said the parade, he understands what its all about (well what a 6 year old could understand).