Russell Boland

Good morning you lovely lot, happy Wednesday everyone. ARMISTICE DAY — 11 NOVEMBER 2026 🌹 Today marks 108 years since the guns fell silent on the Western Front. But how much do we actually know about what happened that morning? A LITTLE HISTORY LESSON. In the early hours of 11 November 1918, representatives of Germany and the Allied powers signed an Armistice in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne, France. The agreement was signed shortly after 5am. But here’s something you might not know. The fighting didn’t stop immediately. The ceasefire was scheduled to begin at 11am, meaning soldiers continued fighting for almost another six hours, despite knowing that the war was about to end. Thousands became casualties on that final morning, including men who died just minutes before the guns fell silent. One British soldier, Private George Edwin Ellison, was killed at approximately 9.30am, just ninety minutes before the Armistice took effect. He was 40 years old, from Leeds, and had survived almost the entire war. Imagine surviving four years of war, only to lose your life ninety minutes before peace. And here’s another interesting fact. The Armistice wasn’t actually a peace treaty. It was an agreement to stop fighting. The Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the war between Germany and the Allied powers, wasn’t signed until 28 June 1919. So why do we fall silent at eleven? Because that was the moment, on 11 November 1918, when the guns finally stopped. AND FINALLY, A WORD ABOUT BLACKADDER. In 1989, the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, titled Goodbyeee, did something extraordinary. For six episodes, we’d laughed at Blackadder’s sarcasm, Baldrick’s stupidity and the absurdity of military life. Then came the final scene. The jokes stopped. The men climbed out of their trench and went over the top. And as they disappeared into the smoke, the battlefield slowly faded into a peaceful field of poppies. No grand speeches. No heroic celebration. Just the sudden realisation that the characters we’d spent weeks laughing with were ordinary men facing something terrifying. A comedy programme managed to explain the human cost of the First World War in a way that countless history lessons never could. If you’ve never watched that final episode, I genuinely recommend it. And if you have, you’ll understand exactly why it still stays with people nearly four decades later. Today, at eleven o’clock, please take two minutes. Not simply because it’s tradition, but because you understand what those two minutes represent. 108 years ago, the guns fell silent. Today, we remember why. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. LEST WE FORGET. 🌹