Left to right: Major Matt Richards, staff officer at the Ahmed bin Mohamed Military College in Qatar, and Wing Commander Mike Palmer, British defence attache at the embassy. PICTURES: David Gillespie
By Fran Gillespie/Doha


More than 250 members of the British, Australian, New Zealand and other Commonwealth communities in Qatar gathered at the British embassy yesterday to attend a ceremony held to commemorate those who died in two world wars and later conflicts, including 385 UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Armistice Day is often referred to as Remembrance Day or Poppy Day, and many present wore a scarlet poppy as a symbol of remembrance. The day has been commemorated annually for the last 93 years, since the end of World War I. The red poppies which bloomed on the battlefields of Flanders in France, where some of the heaviest casualties occurred, were chosen to symbolise the blood spilt in the war.
British ambassador John Hawkins laid a wreath of poppies as an act of remembrance, as is done on this day at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London and at war memorials all over the Commonwealth.

Members of the Commonwealth communities in Qatar gather at the British embassy after the ceremony of remembrance
The official end of World War I took place at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 when the guns at last fell silent, followed by the German signing of the Armistice. 
At exactly this hour a two minutes’ silence is observed in Britain, and allowing for a three-hour time difference the silence was held at 2pm in Doha.
The period of silence was preceded by a bugler calling the Last Post, and followed by the bugle call of Reveille. 
Before this, wing commander Mike Palmer, the British defence attaché, read out a list of 25 names of relatives who had fallen in war, submitted by members of the Commonwealth communities in Doha.
Many children were present at the ceremony alongside their parents.
Talking to Gulf Times, father-of-three Paul said: “I’d like my kids to understand that although they have never experienced a war at first hand, and neither have I come to that, we have a duty  to remember those who gave up their lives.
“My grandfather was lucky, he survived World War II and was awarded a medal; my boys like to look at it and think about their granddad and what he went through. Attending an Armistice Day ceremony helps them to realise how much we have to be thankful for.”