How Iraq War hero and the Express helped save nation's two minute silence

King Charles led the nation in an impeccably-observed two-minute silence on Remembrance Sunday.

And today as the nation marks Armistice Day - when the Allies and Germany signed a declaration in 1918 ending fighting on the Western Front during the First World War - the nation will fall silent once more to honour the service, sacrifices, and heroism of British and Commonwealth armed forces during two world wars, and all who have fallen in conflicts since.

But few will know it was the crusading Express that helped save the period of reflection after it had fallen out of favour with an increasingly apathetic public.

In the 1980s and 90s there was no official period of silence to remember our fallen heroes, prompting a campaign to resurrect a tradition that now dates back 107 years.

John Nichol, 61, the RAF hero shot down, captured and tortured during the first Iraq War in 1991, fronted a Royal British Legion (RBL) push called A Thousand Silences to ensure the nation fell silent each year in memory of its war dead.

His 1995 crusade, enthusiastically backed by the Express, was a stunning success and today's nationwide observance is testimony to those who tirelessly work to honour the memories of the fallen, while continuing to championing veterans of all ages.

He said: "The RBL doesn't just care for Second World War veterans but also veterans of my generation, injured in conflicts closer to home, such as [the former] Yugoslavia, or Northern Ireland.

"All generations should honour the two-minute silence."

Flight Lieutenant Nichol, a navigator, and his pilot John Peters, were shot down on January 17, 1991 when a surface-to-air missile critically damaged their Tornado during an ultra-low-level daytime sortie on Ar Ruma airfield.

The downed and battered pair were paraded on Iraqi TV in a huge propaganda coup for Saddam Hussein, with Flt Lt Nichol shown bloodied and bruised while still wearing his flying suit. He was later tortured inside Abu Ghraib prison.

Since his campaign, a two-minute silence has been observed every year on Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day, as well as other significant commemorative dates, like this year's landmark 80th anniversaries of VE Day on May 8, which marked the end of the Second World War in Europe, and VJ Day on August 15, the date on which the conflict officially ended.

Flt Lt Nichol told the Express: "It is only fairly recently that we returned to marking the two-minute silence on Armistice Day. It really had fallen out of the public mind in the 80s and 90s and was never marked in any official capacity. How do I know all this? I launched the RBL campaign to reinstate it 30 years ago."

The RBL estimates just 8,000 British Second World War veterans are alive with that number set to dwindle to fewer than 300 within a decade.