Remembrance Sunday: Queen leads scaled-back events

The Queen has led the nation in marking Remembrance Sunday, as people around the UK privately paid their respects at home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

She was joined by family members and the PM at the scaled-back service at the Cenotaph in London’s Whitehall.

Social distancing measures were in place and the service was closed off to the public for the first time.

Following a two-minute silence, wreaths were laid by Prince Charles, Prince William and the PM, among others.

The commemorations remember the armed forces community, British and Commonwealth veterans, the allies who fought alongside the UK and the civilian servicemen and women involved in the two world wars and later conflicts.

Normally, Whitehall is packed with thousands of veterans and members of the military for the commemorations, but on Sunday less than 30 veterans were in attendance.

The Queen, dressed in a black hat and coat, looked on from a balcony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office building, as her son, the Prince of Wales, laid a wreath on her behalf.

Others who took part in the wreath laying included the Duke of Cambridge, the Princess Royal and Earl of Wessex, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer.

Also present at the service were former UK prime ministers Theresa May, David Cameron, Tony Blair and Sir John Major.

It felt the same on Whitehall this year, but also really quite different.

At the heart of the ceremony, as ever, was the Cenotaph – the simple stone memorial to the dead of so many conflicts, unveiled a century ago by George V, overlooked on Sunday by the Queen on a Foreign Office balcony.

There was the familiar and always-moving grandeur of the two-minute silence, the wreath laying, the solemn contemplation of so much sacrifice and loss.

But missing were the members of the public who normally travel from all over the country to be here, who stand three or four-deep along the barriers that line either side of Whitehall.

Missing too were the great number of military veterans who march past the Cenotaph after the wreath-laying.

The public and the veterans bring life to this commemoration of loss – they ground this remembrance and make it more personal, more sharply felt.

Remembrance Sunday belongs to those who gave – their lives, their health, their loved ones.

Everyone here in Whitehall will hope that next year will see the public and military veterans return.

BBC