One of the things I really wanted to do during my brief holiday in England was to get to the Tower of London to see this year’s installation of poppies there. They will commemorate one hundred years since the beginning of the First World War, with the last poppy being placed with over 888,000 others on November 11th 2014, Armistice Day. Each poppy represents a fallen person from that war.

As a person who works with clay and who is interested in Public Art, this project grabbed me when I first saw news of the initiative. One of many youtube videos shows the poppies being made at a pottery factory in Derbyshire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58aX_EBwzr4

This is a link to my Picasa album of some of the photos I took last Sunday, the day before I flew back to Canada.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112208740085943894765/TowerOfLondonPoppiesSept2014#

Not only is the many-month-long display a very effective reminder of the horrors of war but also it will serve as a good fund-raiser for several Veterans’ charities. Each poppy can be bought for £24 online. Imagine how much money that will generate. Congratulations to whoever dreamed up this very popular Public Art project!

I am so grateful to my nephew Michael for planning the whole adventure. My brother Bill couldn’t resist a chance to join a get-together of both his sons’ families so drove down from St Neots to join us for the afternoon! Mike, Bill, Molly, Sam and I took the train from Mortlake to Waterloo. From there we walked a short distance to the Thames, right by the London Eye, and bought tickets on a ferry which took us speedily downriver to Tower Bridge. It was such fun to see the City from the river.

We walked all around the moat along with masses of other Sunday afternoon strollers, stopping to gaze at the disturbing flood of red below us in the Tower’s moat. Then we walked over Tower Bridge and headed back along the South Bank. At some point Mike’s brother Richard and two of his children, Milo and Lucia joined us. The whole area has been fixed up as a friendly people place as part of the London Olympics renovations. Borough Market is now a Granville Island-like market I’m told. Certainly it’s an area that will require further exploration on my next trip to London. Tate Modern, the Contemporary Applied Arts shop and the Globe Theatre are all nearby. Too many things to do, not enough time!