DIGNITARIES and shoppers alike observed the two-minute silence in Huntingdon to mark Armistice Day on Friday.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month – and in this, the eleventh year – people fell silent to pay tribute and remember those who died in the two world wars as well as in later conflicts. The time of the ceremony, mirrored across the UK and the world, commemorates the time that the western front fell silent for the last time in 1918.

In the Market Square, approximately 300 members of the public stopped to pay silent tribute, alongside Huntingdon MP Jonathan Djanogly, Huntingdon’s deputy mayor Raj Subhan and the vice-chairman of Huntingdonshire District Council, Barbara Boddington.

Huntingdon town clerk Karen Cameron said: “We had members of the Royal British Legion who lowered their standards during the playing of the Last Post and raised them again during the Reveille.

“I thought that the silence was very well observed. I noticed that a large number of pigeons settled on the roof of Walden House during the silence, an indication of just how still it became in the Market Square. They all took off together when the Reveille was played. It was very moving.”

Ceremonies took place in towns and villages across the district to mark the solemn occasion, with further events and parades due to take place on Remembrance Sunday.