When I visited England for the first time back in 1979, I prided myself on knowing all about "chemists" and "lorries" and "boots." When I was asked how I knew all this stuff, I told people I read a lot. Leaving them with the impression that I was talking about all the best in English literature. Oh, I had read my Austen and Dickens and Hardy, but the truth of the matter was that most of the "Englishisms" I knew came directly from Agatha Christie. Because what did Austen, Dickens or Hardy know from chemists, lorries or boots?
Dorothy Sayers taught me about change ringing in and the women's colleges of Oxford in .
And then there is the date and time which I can reel off as well as 1066 and 9/11. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month was seared into my memory by Dorothy Sayers' , in which Lord Peter Wimsey demolishes an alibi claimed by a man who was toasting his nation's war dead at his club precisely on "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."
The original intent of Armistice Day was to celebrate the Armistice which ended the War to End All Wars. I think we changed it to Veterans' Day when we realized that the true meaning of "armistice" is "temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement between the opponents," the operative word being "temporary" and the probability that, as we move into the future, veterans would always be with us.
And I think that both Christie and Sayers knew enough of human nature to teach us a thing or two about that, as well.