About the Poppy of Honour
The Poppy of Honour is a giant, poppy-shaped memorial created as a unique record of all the British and Commonwealth servicemen and servicewomen lost in the First World War. The familiar image of the Remembrance Poppy is a wonderful thing that we all know and love, and the Royal British Legion has generously issued the necessary user licence that allows its incorporation into the Poppy of Honour memorial.
The 2.6m-tall structure is a slim, metal-sided enclosure with a clear-glass display panel on both sides, each identically fashioned in the outline shape of a remembrance poppy. Behind the outer panels and inside the cavity between them are 1,117,635 individual red poppies – one for every member of the British and Commonwealth Armed Forces lost during the conflict, and each one bearing the hand-written name and rank of the individual it commemorates.
The breath-taking memorial was the idea of Terry Williams from Henstridge in Somerset. Terry served in the Regular Army with the Light Infantry and Reserves during the 1970s and ‘80s, and stayed in touch with others through the veterans’ network. His active involvement in World War 1 remembrance began in the latter part of 2014, when he was asked by the Royal British Legion and the local Ancre History Group in France if he would help out by carrying the Union standard at a number of re-dedication ceremonies for soldiers killed in The Great War. In the event, he spent over five weeks travelling around France and Belgium, attending thirty-six ceremonies., including two burials.
Terry was deeply affected by the moving ceremonies and seemingly endless rows of headstones bearing silent witness to the catastrophic loss of human life caused by the Great War. On his return, he made it his business to find out more about the 1914-18 conflict. While every village, town and city in the countries involved has war memorials recording those lost to its own community, much to Terry’s surprise there was no all-inclusive WW1 memorial anywhere in the UK or Commonwealth. This seemed like such a glaring omission from the roll-call of remembrance that, armed with a complete listing obtained from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, he set about rectifying the situation himself.
Over the following months, other like-minded veterans and family members were enlisted to form a project group, an action plan was put together, the Poppy of Honour concept was created, and Terry drew up a first draft design for the memorial. The aim of Terry and his team was to have the unique memorial ready in time for the 2018 centennial anniversary of the end of the Great War.
The Poppy of Honour team soon found themselves disappearing under a growing mountain of remembrance poppies. All their free time was now devoted to the fiddly job of dismantling poppies to free the petal section for manual inscription and then re-assembling them afterwards. Just pause to imagine the time required to separate the petal, stem, centre and leaf. Now multiply that by 1,117,635 – then double it because every poppy had to be re-assembled!
During the summer months of 2018, a full-scale mock-up of the unfinished central display section was made and mounted on the already finished base. The aim was to promote the Poppy of Honour to the general public, in particular at the up-coming (and always popular) Taunton Flower Show held annually in the county-town’s Vivary Park. The mocked-up memorial was duly set up next to the park’s war memorial, where The Liberty Sisters were drawing big crowds with their repertoire of World War ll songs. Visitors were invited to join-in with the hand-writing of the still unfinished remembrance poppies, and were happy – and touched – to oblige in large numbers. Impressed by the Poppy, The Liberty Sisters took up the cause by writing some poppies themselves. By the end of the weekend, not only had the show succeeded in creating a great deal of interest in the work-in-progress project, but it had also significantly boosted the number of finished poppies.
By the time the Poppy of Honour was completed in 2018, it had achieved international success attracting the hands-on help of nigh on a third-of-a-million volunteers. Such is the power of remembrance.
During the month of November in 2022, the Poppy did a brief overseas tour of duty when it went on public display in Belgium, first in Mons (city centre on the 5th, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe on the 7th) then at Saint Martin’s Cathedral in Ypres for the Armistice parade on the 10th and 11th. Not surprisingly, it generated the same levels of engagement, admiration, wonder and emotion as it does wherever it goes. Even the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo, made a point of introducing himself to the team to congratulate them on the memorial they had created.
As you can imagine, the Poppy has also earned the personal support of a number of high-profile figures in its home country. From the Royal Family, written messages of goodwill have been received from Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal, from His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh, and from His Majesty, King Charles III; from the celebrity world, Dame Joanna Lumley has become the official Patron of the Poppy of Honour.
More recently, 2023 marked two major milestones on the Poppy of Honour’s marathon journey. The first came in February, when the War Memorial Trust granted the Poppy of Honour ‘official’ War Memorial Status subject to its being permanently installed at a fixed location. To this end, plans are under way for its installation in the WW1-commemorative Somerset Wood within Maidenbrook Country Park in West Monkton just north of Taunton. This will also meet Terry’s requirement for The Poppy to remain in his home county of Somerset, so that he and his group of volunteers can carry out the on-going maintenance of the memorial they created.
The second event took place in a special ceremony at Taunton Minster on the 9th of November, when ownership of the Poppy of Honour was transferred to ‘the People’ in perpetuity. ‘The People’ are defined as: ‘The People of the United Kingdom of Great Britian, Northern Ireland and all other Realms and Territories of His Majesty, King Charles lll and all Commonwealth Countries.’