November is poppy month, the time of the year when by the wearing of a simple emblem - the red poppy, we honour the memory of those who sacrificed their families, their futures, and their lives so that we might live in a free country.
The Flanders poppy as it is now usually called, grew freely in the trenches and craters of the World War I war zone. Artillery shells and shrapnel stirred up the earth and exposed the seeds to the light so that they would germinate.
Today the poppy is worn on Remembrance Day, the 11th of November. At 11 o’clock on that day, everyone is asked to be silent for just one minute. The silence is a chance to remember all those who have died in wars and to be thankful for those people as well as to be glad that we are not at war today.

11th November 1919The First Two Minute Silence in London:
The first stroke of eleven produced a magical and beautiful effect on London on November 11th 1919.
The tram cars glided into stillness and silence, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped silent, and the cart horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own free will.
Someone took off his hat, and with a uneasy hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads and removed theirs also. Here and there an old soldier could be seen slipping unconsciously into the stance of 'attention'. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped tears from her eyes, and the man beside her looked pale and stern. Everyone stood very still ... The hush intensified. It was widespread over the entire city and become so pronounced as to impress upon one with a sense of almost being able to hear the silence. It was a silence which was almost painful ... And the spirit of memory hovered over it all.