– by Valerie Green –
Welcome to November, the month of dreary rain, gunpowder plots and doom and gloom! Or so history would have us believe.
November is also Remembrance month: a time when we remember those who have lost their lives in military service from WWI to the present day.
It is celebrated on November 11th each year with origins that began after WWI in which some 60,000 Canadians were killed. It was Member of Parliament, Isaac Pedlow, who made a motion in the House of Commons to institute an annual “Armistice Day” to be held on the second Monday of November each year to commemorate the agreement which was signed at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month, ending the Great War.
The day is still observed as “Armistice Day” in France and Belgium while in the U.K. it is known as Remembrance Sunday nearest to the 11th of November. In the U.S. veterans are honoured on Veterans Day on November 11th.
The symbol of Remembrance Day is the red poppy of Flanders and northern France. Apparently seeds from the flower remain dormant in the earth for years but will blossom in abundance when the soil is churned over, which was of course the case from 1914 onwards in the fields of Flanders following a barrage of artillery crossing Northern France. As the poppies began to grow and flourish, poet John McCrae was inspired to write his famous poem In Flanders Fields as a result.
Other significant things have happened in November through the years. Let’s not forget Guy Fawkes Day in England on November 5th. If you grew up in England you will have celebrated this as a child, being the anniversary of the failed Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.
And on November 7th, 1885, Canada’s first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, was completed in British Columbia.
Margaret Mitchell, the author of my all-time favourite book Gone With The Wind, was born on November 8th, 1900. Her novel about the American Civil War sold over 10 million copies, was translated into 30 languages and became one of the most popular movies of all time. Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for the book which was her only novel. She died in 1949 after being struck by a car in Atlanta.
The word “November” comes from the Latin word novem meaning nine, because in the Roman calendar it was the ninth month of the year. Since the Gregorian calendar came into being, November is of course the 11th month as well as one of only four months with just 30 days in it. If you were born this month, your star sign is either Scorpio or Sagittarius and your birth stone is topaz.
Just a little trivia to help blow away those November blues.
Valerie Green is an author/historian and can be reached at valgee@shaw.ca.
