“Trafalgar Square, 6pm, Sunday the 10th November. It’s already dark but at least its dry!” says SW19 project manager Charles Ellery. The reason he’s there is for Silence in the Square, the second event that SW19 has handled for the Royal British Legion in the space of two weeks.

Charles called upon the services of Star Events, Wernick Hire, Powerline, Capital Sound, STL Lighting, GLD Productions and Global Infusion Group for the event, who all descend on the square to load in through the night, preparing the Square for the influx of 5,000 plus people, all there to stand in silence for two minutes to mark Armistice Day on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

“We had a lovely, smooth load in through the evening with Star setting up the 10-08 stage and FOH tower, Wernick dropping off the dressing room cabins and production office, Powerline bringing in the generators and distro, Capital the audio system and STL the lighting package,” says Charles. “Then ADI arrived and set up the iCONIC 100 screen, which was very impressive.”

Having made it to his hotel room by 3am, Charles was back on site for 6am, ready for all the OB trucks to arrive, get powered up and have their dishes pointing in the right direction.

“The morning brought rain, but the Breadline Café was busy cooking 150 bacon, sausage or egg sarnies for us; urn switched to maximum to keep us all warm and keep the damp out with endless cups of tea and coffee,” Charles recalls. “Slowly but surely, the Royal British Legion arrived and branded the square with poppies of all different sizes.

“The Poppy Girls, Next of Kin and Paul Potts all performed with Zoe Tapper and Adrian Lester delivering some emotional readings from the stage.

“At 10:58 we switched all the traffic lights to red – yes, we do that – and the soldiers and traffic marshals moved amongst the traffic to explain what was going on. Everyone switched off their engines and got out to stand as the Last Post sounded at 10:59.

“Big Ben struck 11am and, as the sound of the bell faded, we all experienced that amazing annual event: the heart of Central London utterly, deafeningly, silent for two minutes.

“With the Reveille from the bugler announcing the end of the two minutes, the Kohima read by the Chairman of the British Legion, and the traffic lights switched back on to their normal phasing, the background noise of a working Monday morning in London returned. And we got ready to load out…”