The Ceramic Poppies were put on sale for £25 each with all net proceeds plus 10% of each sale being shared between six Armed Services‘ charities including The Royal British Legion. I don’t think any further words are necessary to describe their impact, do you? What follows are some of the photographs that I took during my visit to The Tower of London in November 2014. The final Poppy was placed in The Moat by an Army Cadet Harry Hayes, aged 13, on Armistice Day, the 11th November, 2014. Each poppy represents a British or Colonial serviceman who was killed during the War and is the work of the artist, Paul Cummins, with setting by the stage designer, Tom Piper. The placing of poppies here is an example of Installation Artwith the title of Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, which is the first line of a poem by an unknown soldier who fought in the First World War (and not to be confused with the more famous poem by Lt.
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However, one thing is certain, nothing could have prepared me for the the moving experience that it proved to be.Ĭlick hereto watch hear about the Project see the Poppies being installedĬlick here to appreciate the full impact of the Ceramic Poppiesīetween July and November 2014, 888,246 ceramic poppies were planted in The Moat of The Tower of London. However, I doubt if anything could have prepared me for the spectacular sight that greeted me when I arrived at The Tower. I have to admit that I had no idea what to expect of the Ceramic Poppies since I had not even seen a photograph of them. Each Remembrance Sunday until she died, she along with many others, wept copious tears in memory of him and the others who had been killed. My mother never quite got over her brother’s death and he remained young and vibrant like the picture of him that she treasured. Tragically, he and two Canadian soldiers were killed by a sniper two days after the War had ended. My mother’s youngest brother joined the Army at the age of 17 and was assigned to the Artillery. He was in Malaya when the Second World War was declared and eventually spent two years in a Japanese Prison Camp. My mother’s elder brother had joined the Army at a young age and had been sent to the Far East. She maneuvered the horses and cart through the narrow streets of the City of London and The Docks of the Port of London. Her job required her to load boxes of various sizes and weight onto a huge cart to be pulled by two Belgian Horses. Top Row: left, Site of Aldgate Railway Goods Depot right, Aldgate Underground Stationīottom Row: left, Aldgate Bus Terminus in 1952 middle, in 1958 right, in 2009 My mother had also been called up and worked for British Railways for the duration of the War years and was based at its Aldgate Depot. He was part of the D-Day Invasion along with thousands of others, and with some of them, made his way into France, Belgium, The Netherlands and finally into Germany. My father had been called up in 1939 and joined the Army.
Every Remembrance Sunday, I stood in silence for two minutes with my parents and later in the day visited Whitehall to view the wreaths of Poppies and flowers lain at the foot of The Cenotaph. I had been brought up to be respectful of the memory of the fallen of the Wars and each year I was encouraged to wear a Poppy on my lapel as a reminder. When I said that I hadn’t, I was told that I needed to go as soon as possible! when I arrived in London, the place was abuzz with talk about the Poppies. In spite of this, I still managed not to hear of the Poppies!Īnyway ………. And of course, now BBC Radiois available on the Internet, but sadly not via iPlayer. Fortunately of late, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) have entered into an agreement with the BBC to allow its News coverage to be heard and shown here. Unfortunately, such an oversight is not unusual since those responsible for producing News programming here do not seem to pay too much attention to what is going on around the world unless it has a direct bearing on American policy or of interest to them. now and I do not remember any mention of the Poppies on The News. I am ashamed to say that I had not heard about the Ceramic Poppies in The Moat of The Tower of London until I arrived in London in early November 2014. The Tower, The Moat & The Poppies from the airĬlick here to see The Poppies from the air