A POIGNANT day of moving tributes to York's war dead saw the city fall silent at 11am.

Armistice Day was remembered throughout the city and North Yorkshire - 97 years to the day since the end of the First World War.

Veterans from York's branch of the Royal British Legion, North Yorkshire Police and the Railway Ex-Servicemen's Association were joined by hundreds of residents at the city's British Railways War Memorial in Station Rise for a short service and two minutes silence.

Ian Sparks, 60, a veteran of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) was at the memorial and said the service was a chance to remember his father, who was rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk during the Second World War, and his grandfather, a veteran of the Great War.

He said: "This was a chance to remember my family the friends which I have made during a career of 20 years and who have died through conflict and after leaving the army.

"There's a lot of people worse off than us and I think about the guys who have gone out to Iraq or Afghanistan as fit young men and have come back wounded, maimed or completely changed."

Gilbert Nimmo MBE, a former Army Air Corps Warrant Officer Class One, added: "This is even more poignant than ever with the recent involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is something we should never forget."

Elsewhere in the city, The Lord Mayor of York, Cllr Sonja Crisp, attended a church service at St Martin’s, in Coney Street, York, and a silence was observed at York railway station.

Tadcaster Grammar School's Head Boy and Head Girl, Greg Brewster and Jess Render, read poems and the Last Post was played by Year 10 student Matthew Foulds.

Barbara Patton, from Tesco Clifton Moor, raised £250 for the Royal British Legion after selling her knitted poppies to customers and staff in the supermarket.