THE NATION fell silent today to remember those who lost their lives fighting for their country.

Across Shropshire, the two minute Armistice Day silence was marked at 11am by young and old, and wreaths were laid at county war memorials in honour of the fallen.

The standstill at 11am, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, marked the anniversary of the day peace returned to Europe at the end of the First World War in 1918.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, defence ministers, representatives of military associations, veterans and school children attended a service at the Cenotaph in central London to commemorate Armistice Day.

In Shropshire, around 100 people gathered in Ludlow’s Market Square.

The Venerable Colin Williams, from St Laurence’s Church, led the prayers and bugler Paul Kemp played The Last Post.

It was followed by the laying of poppy wreaths at the town’s war memorial.

More than 300 Shropshire Council staff and councillors gathered at the Shirehall, Shrewsbury. Hundreds also turned out at the war memorial at Telford Town Park.

Prime Minister David Cameron marked Remembrance Day today by laying a wreath at the site of the British Army’s bloodiest battle since the end of the Second World War.

Some 59 men died and 526 were taken prisoner – 180 of them wounded – during the Battle of the Imjin River in 1951 during the Korean War. Another 34 men died in captivity.

Mr Cameron – who is in South Korea for the G20 summit – met about 40 Bri tish veterans of the war on a trip organised by the Korean Veterans Association.

Meanwhile, thieves snatched Poppy Day collection tins containing around £90 each in separate incidents at the Princess Royal Hospital and Wellington Leisure Centre in Telford.

The theft from the leisure centre took place between 9.15am and 11.15am yesterday, with the other tin taken from the counter of the cafe hospital at 5.30pm.

Hospital League of Friends chairman Alan Millward said today: “To steal from a charity is appalling but words fails me when someone steals a collection honouring our war dead.”

By Wayne Beese