Armistice Day: silences mark 100 years since end of first world war – live updates | World news

Kate Nicholl’s great grandfather John Waugh, was killed in action aged 28 in Flanders just two weeks before the Armistice.

“Which makes it seem doubly senseless,” she said. He had been shell shocked and was very traumatised but still had to fight.

As she joined the People’s Procession she was also remembering her great-grandfather’s brother Tommy, who survived the war. By remarkable coincidence Tommy and John met at a field hospital shortly before John would be killed. Even more of a coincidence, their sister Violet was working there as a nurse.

“Tommy had been injured at the Somme. He spent three days in no man’s land hiding under dead bodies in order to survive,” she said. “Then he continued to Flanders.

“By 1918, both John and Tommy were serving in Flanders”. The meeting at the field hospital was only brief before John was on his way back to the front never to return.

The family were from Nettlesworth in Co Durham, said Nicholls who lives in Ealing, West London. “It was one of countless villages where they would lose a whole generation”.

The People’s Procession was important, she said. “Because the generation who had first-hand knowledge are dying out, not just those who served but those they told.

“I think it would be a lovely thing to allow descendants to continue to hold true to those memories.”

In Paris, around 70 heads of state, prime ministers and foreign dignitaries are gathered with Emmanuel Macron, at the start of armistice commemorations at the Arc de Triomphe.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin was the last to arrive at the Arc de Triomphe, shaking hands with Macron and Angela Merkel. Putin then stopped to shake hands with the US president Donald Trump and gave Trump a thumbs up.

In the pouring rain, most heads of state arrived with Macron in coaches driven up the Champs Elysées from the presidential palace. They then walked slowly together under black umbrellas to the Arc de Triomphe, with Angela Merkel beside Macron.

This image of leaders walking together through the rain was described by French commentators described as a moving gesture about peace.

Some leaders were absent from this slow march, including the US president Donald Trump and the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who both arrived at the Arc de Triomphe separately in their own security detail. Macron is to deliver a speech and then light a flame in honour of an unknown soldier.

Testimonies written by soldiers on November 11, 1918, as the ceasefire took hold, will be read later by high school students in French, English and German.

In London, the 10,000 people taking part in the People’s Procession are gathering on The Mall to take part in this unique march past the Cenotaph to mark the centenary.

Jackie Sheridan is marching for her great great uncle Oliver Davies who was killed in Palestine by a stray bullet while taking the horses to water. From Leicester, he was just 21 when he died on 2nd December 1917 and was serving with the Royal Engineers. He was youngest of 13 children.

“He was a driver but I think he was also the captains groom,” said Jackie, also from Leicester , who is marching with her husband Steven.

She has the letter , now very fragile, sent by his captain on Oliver’s death, praising him as a “cheery” lad who was “loved by all” and “one of the best”. The captain had erected a cross for him at his grave 15 miles from Jerusalem. On her phone Jackie has picture of a sketch that was drawn of his grave.

“I’ve grown up with the story “ said Jackie, a scout leader marching in her Scout Leader uniform.

“I shall salute when we get to the Cenotaph”

“It’s important to show your respect. We are passionate that the younger generation know and learn that peace is so much more important than war.”

With WW1 veterans long passed and WW2 veterans fading, it was important to keep the commemoration going, she said. “I have a grandson who is only nine months old and I hope when he is old enough we will still carry on.”