Last Sunday afternoon I went up to the Antrim Forum to the Royal British Legion Service of Remembrance because I had been told that the poppy pieces would be on display.
Although it was a terribly wet and miserable day the sight of our poppies at the forum was breath taking. It really was a WOW factor.
Ours were not the only poppies as you can see from the photos below.
The parade of local servicemen walked through a poppy guard of honour into the building. Each poppy had the name of a local serviceman on each side of it. Then inside the building there were other displays too.
The Antrim piece was beautifully displayed, with the information boards, in a large window area at the entrance to the leisure centre.
The Newtownabbey piece was centre stage at the service. I was chatting to a few folks after the service and they thought that the pieces were very striking. The large yellow/orange backdrop was a roll of honour for the area.
Started by three librarians but it has grown into something much bigger and better
Wednesday, 16 November 2016
Friday, 4 November 2016
Poppies
You'll all probably remember a few weeks ago I blogged about our 3Ps? At the time I mentioned two of the Ps, the production and project, but couldn't announce the third P? Well now I can tell you about the last P - poppies.
The project for the Somme
Commemorative Pieces came out of the Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council Arts
and Cultural Committee of which two of us are members. The group was very honoured and delighted to
have been asked to participate in the Commemoration.
As you know, craft for the group is
very much a hobby, a relaxation activity and many of the ladies hold down full
time jobs or have family commitments and so to dedicate so much time to this is
very commendable. The ladies have pooled
their individual and collective skills during the past few weeks and some of us
have even added new skills to our crafting CV!
On Wednesday 2nd November the ladies from Hookery were invited to a civic reception at the Museum at the Mill, Newtownabbey for the unveiling of two special pieces. We had been responsible for these:
So many of us in the Hookery group had,
and still have, servicemen and women in our families and for that reason it was
a great honour to create these commemorative pieces to those who gave their
lives 100 yrs ago.
A few folks helped us along our
way. Mark Thompson, Black Sheep Printing
and Sheldon Galleries, Belfast gave each piece such a professional glow. Ursula, Samantha, Deirdre, Jackie, Wesley and
Gordon also helped us along the way.
The Hookery ladies also deserve a
huge thanks from me because when I originally mentioned the project to them
they were immediately, and unquestionably, agreeable and also because of the
amount of personal time they have dedicated to it.
It took a few long weeks from start to finish and here are photos of the works-in-progress.
We had additional help with poppy
production from 3 ladies belonging to Women's Arts and Crafts, an affiliated member of Small Steps Community Development in Duncairn, North Belfast.
Quite a bit of thought went into
each piece, and although we are not historians, we tried our best to make the
pieces relevant, to represent as many aspects of the Somme, the local area and
the men as possible. Each piece has
similarities but also subtle differences.
·
There are 141 individual poppies in each piece
to represent the 141 days of the battle
·
The words we have used surrounding the poppies
were their words, of their time, reflecting both the horror of war and also how
the normality of life went on at the same time, illustrated by ‘the guns are
going now’, ‘shake a man’s nerves’ …... and then mention of ‘nice weather’ and
‘plum duff’
·
We used quotations applicable to the particular
area where the pieces are to be displayed. For example, we used
quotations from the diaries of Tom McKinney from Sentry Hill for the piece to
be displayed at Mossley Mill and quotations from speeches
made by Lt. Col. H A Packenham who commanded the 11th (Service) Battalion, the
Royal Irish Rifles (South Antrim Volunteers) for the piece which will be
displayed at Antrim Civic Centre
·
We used individual poppies in terms of colour,
shape, size, and texture to represent the individuality of each soldier but put
them together into a single poppy to represent the regiments and battalions in which they served
·
A linen–type background to the pieces represents
the industry in the local area which would have lost so many young men to the
war
·
And finally, the
well-known quotation from the Kohima Epitaph, credited to the poet John
Maxwell Edmonds, has been used to link the
pieces - For Your Tomorrow / We Gave Our
Today.
The Hookery ladies hope everyone
enjoys looking at these pieces and hope that they will be meaningful to, and
appreciated by, residents of the Borough and future visitors to our Civic
Centres.
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