CITIES and towns descended into silence for two minutes at wreath-laying ceremonies to mark Armistice Day, 100 years after the start of the First World War.
In Glasgow, an Armistice Day service was held in George Square, while Veterans Minister Keith Brown unveiled a new armed forces memorial plaque at Central Station as part of yesterday's commemorations.
The black marble plaque reads: "On these platforms, in two World Wars, hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women said good-bye to their families, some for the last time."
Mr Brown said: "The people of Scotland owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who fought and died in the two world wars, and this plaque is a fitting commemoration to those who said goodbye to their families at platforms one and two in this station."
In Edinburgh, services were held in the Garden of Remembrance next to the Scott Monument and at Waverley railway station.
There were also major ceremonies in Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness and Dumfries. Erskine held a service of Remembrance at each of its five care homes.
At the veterans charity's main home in Renfrewshire, ex-RAF serviceman Joe Martin, 84, said: "I always think of my pals, those that were killed. I have such gratitude to my mates, those that didn't come home."
At the Tower of London, a sea of 888,246 ceramic poppies in the moat provided the poignant backdrop to the UK capital's main service.
Former Chief of the General Staff, Lord Dannatt, read the names of victims before schoolboy Harry Hayes, 13, stepped forward in his army cadet fatigues to lay the last of the poppies and make a salute.
Artist Paul Cummins' installation, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, is to remain until the end of the month after more than five million people visited it.
Fines paid by banks, including RBS and Barclays, for rigging interest rates will be used to finance a tax break for British military charities raising funds from the Tower of London poppy memorial.
The Treasury will waive the VAT on the sale of hundreds of thousands of red ceramic poppies that form the hugely popular installation marking the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War. The government will donate the amount it would have received in VAT, £1.1 million, to six military charities.
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