At the Tower of London, Azana Francis finds herself surrounded by poppies and people commemorating the outbreak of the First World War.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you would know that this year is the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, and to commemorate it, East London’s iconic Tower Of London was home to one of the year’s most inventive exhibits. Paul Cummins’ installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies – one for every British or colonial soldier killed during the conflict – was called ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’ after a poem by an unknown soldier that begins: ‘Blood swept lands and seas of red/Where angels dare to tread.’
Each poppy has now been sold for £25 to raise money for the Royal British Legion.
Visiting the site just before the poppies were removed, I was struck both by the numbers, and by the variety of people who came to pay their respects. Young and old, able bodied and disabled, couples and groups of friends all lined up against the gates to catch a glimpse of the river of red poppies.
Although precise figures for how many East Londoners died in the war are hard to come by, the stories of some of them can be found via the links below:
http://www.newham.gov.uk/Documents/Misc/NewhamInTheGreatWar19141918.pdf
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2014/08/05/east-end-soldiers-of-world-war-one/
Elise Briggs asked more visitors about why they had come. Up from Kent with daughter Rachel and her grandchildren, Denise Richards bought one of the £25 poppies to pass on through the generations. ‘My grandfather was part of the Air Force so this has a particularly special place in the family. I have four grandchildren so choosing who to give the poppy to has been a struggle. But I’ve decided to give it to the youngest, Mathew, who was born earlier in 2014, exactly 100 years after the war began.’
What of the younger generation? Joseph Shears wondered how the fallen soldiers would have reacted to the continuation of war, even though this was meant to have been the war to end all wars. He said: ‘It makes me upset to think that all these men and women that lost their lives, have not made a change. The world is still fighting, British troops are still losing their lives – I hope it doesn’t mean their deaths where in vain.’