2018 marks the centennial of the end of World War I, and in a stunning tribute 10,000 flames have illuminated the Tower of London.
Around 10,000 flames have been lit at the Tower of London to mark the centenary of the end of World War I – “Beyond the Deepening Shadow: The Tower Remembers.”.
A ceremonial Beefeater guard kicked off the lighting spectacle by bringing a flame down from the tower into the moat, which had been submerged in smoke.
Dozens of representatives from the armed forces and volunteers then used the flame to ignite thousands of other torches staked into the ground underneath the tower, bathing the moat and wall around the tower in light.
The ceremony at the Tower of London begins at dusk, with the torches going from 5 to 9 each night, and will run until Armistice Day 2018 on November 11.
Midshipman Balraj Dhanda of the Royal Navy, a volunteer who helped light the flames, described to The Sun the spectacle as “really, really powerful”.
He added: “I think it creates the right atmosphere for people to have their own personal reflections and gives people time with their own thoughts.”
Throughout the UK and the Commonwealth, many people wear red poppies on Remembrance Day, recalling a line from the famous poem “In Flanders Fields” by the Canadian John McCrae: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row.”
