Remembrance Day Message To Travel Across London By Semaphore

STOP PRESS: Since we wrote this story, the National Maritime Museum has put an animation of the Remembrance Day semaphore message up on its website.

Click here to see it (it's a big file, so it might take a while to load), and find out what the message said.

On Remembrance Sunday 2005 (November 13) a special message will be sent across London to remember all those who have died in wars.

Find out more about Remembrance Sunday, and why people wear poppies.

Photo: © Scott Moore.

The message will be sent by flag semaphore, a form of signalling which uses two yellow and red flags to send messages.

The navy has used semaphore for centuries although it is not widely used these days.

How the two flags are held shows what letter of the alphabet is being sent.

Find out more about semaphore on this site about Scouts.

Image: © inter.scoutnet.org

The message will start at the Royal Observatory building at Greenwich in south-east London. It will then make its way along the River Thames and across to Trafalgar Square, and then to Horse Guards Parade, not far from the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace.

The message will be sent by 20 veterans (people who have fought in wars) of World War Two, the Falklands and other conflicts and will be shown on TV at the same time.

Along the way the message will be received and sent by the famous ships the Cutty Sark, HMS Belfast (here in the photograph) and HMS St Vincent.

The Cutty Sark is an old sailing boat now kept on land in Greenwich and HMS Belfast and HMS St Vincent are warships from the 20th century that are now moored on the Thames.

When the message gets to Horse Guards Parade it will then be decoded and the message attached to a wreath (an arrangement of flowers used to commemorate dead people) that will be placed on a monument called the Cenotaph.

The Cenotaph is a special war memorial and on Remembrance Sunday each year the Queen leads a service there dedicated to Britain's war dead.

An artist called Beth Derbyshire had the idea for the message and there will be an exhibition of her work at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It runs from November 12 2005 to January 18 2006 and the artworks are inspired by the messages sent to soldiers and sailors during wartime.

You can find out more about the history of war, and remembrance, at these museums:

National Maritime Museum, London
National Army Museum, London
Imperial War Museum, London
Imperial War Museum Duxford, Cambridge
Imperial War Museum North, Manchester
National War Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh