The commemorative installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red marks the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war. Thousands of people have visited, and volunteer poppy-planter places are severely oversubscribed.
16,000 people gave their time to help plant the 888,246 ceramic poppies, each representing a British or colonial fatality in the first world war, and a further 8,000 will help remove them after 11 November.
The memorial received a controversial review this week by Jonathan Jones: “It’s disturbing that, 100 years on, we can only mark this terrible war as a nationalistic tragedy … a deeply aestheticised, prettified and toothless war memorial,” he wrote.
The ceramic artist Paul Cummins and set designer Tom Piper were inspired by a line in the will of a Derbyshire man who died in Flanders: “The Blood Swept lands and seas of red, where angels fear to tread.”
Here, volunteer poppy-planters tell us why they helped create the ceramic memorial.
The poppy team
When I visited the Tower at the end of July, I saw the team installing the poppies gathered round for a meeting. Look at the background to see some of the thousands of poppies already set out, and consider how many more would be needed to mark each British fatality during the First World War. Awful, both in the classical and modern sense of the word.
Danielle Eaton
Yes, this installation is about all of the allied services’ lives that were lost in world war one, but going to view the poppies does not stop anyone from remembering those who lost their lives during this war regardless of where they came from. Any life lost to war is one life too many.
It might not be to everyone’s taste but that does not mean someone has the right to slate and undermine the public’s outpouring of respect towards it. It’s become part of a tourist attraction but that just helps to spread the memorial’s message far and wide.
After visiting the installation for my father-in-law’s 70th birthday, both my husband and I volunteered. I wanted to do something that in time my children would be proud of and instill in them how important it is to volunteer. I also wanted to say thank you and pay my respects to all of the servicemen who gave their lives hundreds of years ago so that we could have the life we have today.
By having the opportunity to purchase a poppy I am also helping to support our soldiers still in service today and will have something to show our children and therefore ensure that we will never forget about it.
This was the first time I have stepped completely out of my comfort zone. But I’m incredibly proud to have volunteered for this project and will be looking out for further volunteering opportunities in the future.
pricklygirl
Not one of us involved escaped unmoved; most of the volunteers were there to commemorate someone who died in WW1. Some people had come from Italy or Sweden or France especially to do it. To plant the poppies, not just stand and look at them.
It was a profoundly moving experience and many of us had to down tools at some point to withdraw and contemplate the meaning of all this. Everyone commented that handling a poppy was handling a life lost, and everyone said: “And this is just the Brits, never mind the other countries and civilians.” We were all aware of the limitations in terms of numbers.
The sheer scale and spread of poppies is stunning, and knowing they represent a minority of overall deaths is deeply disturbing. The futility of the war is rammed home with every poppy hammered into the ground. “What good did their deaths do?” was asked again and again as we planted. “What have we learned from it?” was another.
Rather than create the kind of divisions that seem to pass for political ideology these days, this exhibit has the power and significance to tap into what connects us as humans. To say it is a platform for the likes of Ukip, that it is jingoism and nationalism made reality, that it somehow means the war was an OK thing, shows Mr Jones has failed to understand it. He is clearly devoid of emotion and insight, unlike many, many of the people who either visit or volunteer.
Beefeaters guide visitors across a sea of poppies
Taken during a quick break whilst planting poppies on a glorious August afternoon. Thinking of the men getting ready to fight overseas. How jolly it must have seemed in the sunlight and how quickly things darkened.
exexpat
I planted poppies with my family in early September. None of the hundreds of volunteers on the day, everyday folk from all walks of life from across the UK and elsewhere, were in any doubt about what each poppy represents. A soldier’s life lost.
One lady next to us broke a petal when planting the poppy into the ground and choked up immediately – “it’s like I’ve hurt one of the soldiers again”, she said. And the scale of the display is simply astonishing with each poppy handmade, unique and instantly relatable to a fallen ancestor. A direct and simple link to the faces of the dead in yellowing photographs, or letters, or family histories.
That’s why it has captured the public imagination. And why, in his sneering desire to be contrarian, Jones’s article is so misjudged.
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