Yesterday, Britain officially observed a one-minute moment of silence, in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack in Tunisia.
How was it marked, and how widespread was the observance?
I found only two youtube clips They showed both the formal and the informal: the Queen and Parliament standing solemnly, and the crowd at Wimbledon rising to its feet, and a beach scene where most (but not all) of the people standing still.
But the same video opens with a city scene,a clock tower striking 12, but crowds of people and traffic still moving, going about their business as usual.
Hard to tell. There was no one from our town affected, so I suspect that most people didn’t. In Blackpool where some of the victims lived, there was a pretty widespread standstill.
I was at home so I didn’t actually observe anything.
I didn’t even know that there was a minute silence, until I went into one of the shops, and they told us the minute had been and gone! (I was in the shop at about 1.40 pm, goodness knows what I was doing at 12 noon!)
I was reminded about it in my local library at about half 11[1], but was probably outside walking home at noon and had completely forgotten it. Was not aware of the street around me falling silent either.
[1] Old school librarian, I suspect she just approves of silence in the library in general
I’ll observe it on Remembrance Sunday, but I find is overused these days, which devalues it. It also feels like an imposition, rather than a genuine tribute like, for instance, Villa fans minute of applause to let Petrov know he was not forgotten when he was suffering from leukemia.
I didn’t observe it. It was a hot day and my local opens at twelve…
Yep, I think remembrance Sunday carries some weight and I have no complaints with a minutes silence then. But there seems to be a general attempt to push it for every tragedy and I think it tends to devalue all of them.
I work in retail, and the chain I work for observed it, we put out an announcement over our tannoy and most people stopped for the minute.
we had one customer who was annoyed to be kept waiting, but once we explained why we stopped. he was very apologetic and had clearly just not heard the announcement (or just didn’t listen).
Personally I was more then happy to do the minute silence, not counting remembrance sunday and Armistice say , I think the last (that I can remember) we did extra was for the July 7th bombing from 2005 so I don’t think it overused.
I was shopping, so it was only after I got home and heard the news that I remembered that it was happening. Didn’t see anyone else taking part either. I agree with the other people saying it has become overused.
My workplace had a minute of silence for both the Tunisia victims and the 7/7 victims. There was an announcement before and after, and it was widely observed (apart from one person in the middle of a business call).
