Remembrance Day ceremony at Old City Hall honours the fallen

The sun defied the bleak weather forecast Tuesday morning to shine on Remembrance Day processions across Toronto.

At Old City Hall, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the streets were choked by hundreds of people bracing together against the harsh November wind. They were a sea of poppies, silent under billowing flags and skirling bagpipes.

At the centre of everything, on the front steps of the building, was a cenotaph, dedicated to all the “glorious dead” killed in the Great War and subsequent armed conflicts.

Four soldiers were stationed before the monument, personifying them. Each wore the uniform of a different war, and stood head down, solemn, balanced on the standard issue rifle of their time — symbolizing the same heroic spirit being carried over gene