AS the years go by the ranks of veterans thin, but the sombre spectacle of the Remembrance Day Service continues to draw a large crowd of locals and visitors to what is always Bermuda's best and most meaningful military event.

The skies above the soldiers and cadets and bandsmen were grey and rain threatened, but only a slight drizzle fell near the end of the proceedings, and a light but cool breeze fluttered the flags on the Cenotaph.

As the soldiers snapped to attention, Governor Sir Richard Vereker, escorted by his ADC Captain Robert Spurling, walked to his position directly in front of the Cenotaph. The row of dignatories and the ranks of veterans, 60 of them, occupied their tradional places in front of the monument on Front Street.

The Governor, resplendent in white uniform and plumed hat, was flanked by Premier Alex Scott on his right, and Mayor of Hamilton Lawson Mapp on his left. Frank Farmer, the president of the War Veterans' Association, stood to the left of Mayor Mapp, and Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons stood, appropriately, to the Premier's right.

The Governor was escorted by Mr. Farmer, a World War Two veteran of the Royal Navy, around the three ranks of veterans, one old soldier in a wheelchair and the rest standing as straight as age and physical circumstances allowed. The usual packed crowd on the south pavement on Front Street and around the perimeter of the Cabinet Building looked on respectfully or trained cameras on the scene.

The band fell silent at one minute before the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month that has marked the Armistice day since 1918, when the First World War came to an official end in a park called Compi?gne.

At exactly 11 o'clock, the guns at Fort Hamilton and Ordnance Island fired a round to mark the start of the two minutes' silence, and those old enough to do so thought of friends or family members who went off to war and never returned. Perhaps a thousand people stood in a silence broken only by the crying of a child.

The sounded, plaintive and affecting, as a gun fired to mark the end of the silence. As the band played, wreaths were laid in the order demanded by protocol, and a prayer and the singing of a hymn brought the formal service to a close.

The parade stood to attention for Reveille, played faultlessly by the Regimental Bugler, and the Governor departed, his car driven briskly out of the Cabinet Building grounds and west along Front Street with a phalanx of police motorcyclists fore and aft.

The veterans, led by War Veterans Trustee Jack Lightbourn, marched smartly in the same direction, to enthusiastic applause, and the crowd drifted away. The wreaths lay beneath the Cenotaph, testimony to the formal gratitude of the people for the service of the hundreds of men and women who defended Bermuda in times of war, or left the sanctuary of their island to fight in other lands, in other skies and seas.

And to the 125 men and one women who served in the two World Wars, and who never came home.