Everyone is familiar with the traditional symbols, places and times associated with Remembrance Day. This year’s Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal, launched just under two weeks ago, hopes to sell 45 million poppies, the nationally recognised symbol of remembrance in the UK. Yet, the 2012 Poppy Appeal also incorporates a new and innovative method to encourage society to mark the 2 minutes silence at 11am on Sunday 11th November. By using the social media tool “Thunderclap” it is intended that the same message will be posted simultaneously on thousands of Twitter and Facebook profiles as a symbol of remembrance. In doing this the Royal British Legion’s appeal for remembering the fallen moves into a new space of remembrance, alongside the more traditional commemorations that take place at the Cenotaph in Whitehall and at local war memorials across the country.
Changes in the spaces and acts of remembrance have this year also been the subject of geographical consideration. The work of Jenkings et al. (2012) “Wootton Bassett and the political spaces of remembrance and mourning” uses print media analysis to consider how the Wiltshire market town became a nationally recognised space of remembrance as a result of British military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the course of their work they explore how this space spontaneously became a site of memory and remembrance, yet a site that ultimately became temporary in nature following the decision to relocate the destination of repatriation flights away from RAF Lyneham. It is therefore clear from both the innovative use of spaces and symbols by the Royal British Legion and the temporary use of urban areas as spaces of memory and remembrance that geography still has much to offer and yet much to learn about the contemporary uses of space.
Jenkings, K.N., Megoran, N., Woodward, R. and Bos, D. 2012 Wootton Bassett and the political spaces of remembrance and mourning Area 44:3 356-363
Poppy appeal launches with concert BBC News 24th October 2012
Royal British Legion first with Thunderclap social media tool BBC News 5th November 2012
Two Minute Silence Thunderclap
Geography Directions 
Geography has a lot to offer when it comes to analysing spaces of alternative remembrance as well, such as the wearing of the White Poppy, which seeks to remember all victims of war and to promote peace, see the peace pledge union http://www.ppu.org.uk/. Also, an interesting account from Richard Jackson, http://richardjacksonterrorismblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/why-i-wear-the-white-poppy-not-the-red-poppy/