Armistice day and St Martins Day or Martinmas. Appropriately St Martin is the patron saint of soldiers.
Martin was born into a Pagan family before his baptism in AD 354 which followed a vision of Christ he experienced after sharing his cloak with a beggar. He became Bishop of Tours in AD 371 and died in AD 397 when November 11th was his burial date. His cloak became a sacred relic which was stored in a special chapelle or capela (from the Latin cappa meaning cloak). The English word Chapel comes from this.
Many weather sayings in November are linked to St Martins Day.
Wind north-west at Martinmas, severe winter to come
If on Martinmas it is fair and cold then winter will not last long
If the wind is in the south-east at Martinmas it will remain there until after Christmas
Another spell of glorious sun
Should with St Martin's season come.
Armistice Day marked the end of the Great War from 1918 to 1939 with two minutes silence at the 11th hour on the 11th but then after WWII the main observance moved to the nearest Sunday to the 11th and called Remembrance Sunday.
Remembrance Sunday in the 80's always seemed to be cold because those were the years we took the Cub Scouts to Bacton church for the Remembrance Service which involved standing outside, without coats, at the war memorial in the churchyard. Everyone else had coats but people in uniform didn't ........... actually maybe it was just me freezing - children never seem to feel the cold.
London looked foggy for this years service ............. Novembers now seem much milder.
Since the mid 90's the two minutes silence on the 11th was revived and observed as well as the Sunday services in Churches and at the Cenotaph.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard among the guns below.
John McCrea -'In Flanders Fields' 1915
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