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From the end of October, you will start to see small red paper poppies pinned to people’s coats, on television presenters’ jackets and on wreaths outside town halls. If you are new to the UK, you might wonder what they mean. They are part of Remembrance, the time each November when Britain remembers the people who died in war.

The date comes from the end of the First World War. The fighting stopped at 11 o’clock on the morning of 11 November 1918: the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Every year on 11 November, which people call Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, much of the country stops at 11am for a two-minute silence. In offices, shops, colleges and train stations, people stand still and say nothing. If you are somewhere public at that moment, the polite thing to do is to stop and be quiet with everyone else.

There is also Remembrance Sunday, the second Sunday in November, which this year falls on 8 November 2026. Services are held at war memorials (= monuments with the names of local people who died in war) in almost every town and village, and the main national ceremony takes place at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. Wreaths of poppies are laid, and the silence is held again at 11am.

Why poppies? During the First World War, red poppies grew across the battlefields of Flanders, in Belgium and northern France, on ground where thousands of soldiers had died. They became a symbol of remembrance. Today the paper poppies are sold by volunteers for the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal, which raises money for members of the armed forces, veterans and their families. You give a donation (= a gift of money, as much or as little as you like) and you get a poppy to wear.

You don’t have to wear one, and nobody will ask you to. If you would like to, though, it is a respectful gesture, and many international students and staff choose to. People usually wear it on the left, close to the heart, from late October until 11 November.

Some phrases you will hear: to pay your respects, to lay a wreath, to observe a silence (= to keep it), and ‘Lest we forget’, which means ‘so that we do not forget’.

Remembrance is one of the quietest and most serious parts of the British year, and understanding it helps you understand the country a little better.