Symbolism

Every day, just before 8 o'clock in the evening, the local police halt the traffic passing through the Menin Gate. For a few brief moments, the modern world is brought to a stop and the Last Post ceremony takes us back in time to the terrible and turbulent years of the Great War, as we pause to remember our dead.

The Menin Gate was chosen as the location for the ceremony because of its special symbolic significance: it was from this spot that countless thousand of soldiers set off for the front, many of them destined never to return.

Originally, the Last Post was a bugle call used in the British Army (and others) to signal the end of the day. In the context of the Last Post ceremony, it represents a final farewell to the fallen.
In similar manner, the Reveille was traditionally played at the break of day, to waken the soldiers and call them to their duty. In the context of the Last Post ceremony, it not only symbolises the return to daily life at the end of the act of remembrance, but also expresses the resurrection to 'eternal life' of the fallen.

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30,000 Acts of Remembrance

By the 9th July 2015 the buglers of past and present at the Menin Gate will have sounded the Last Post on 30,000 occasions. To commemorate this, the Last Post Association will publish a special edition book. We need your help!

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