Week 17 - 5000 Poppies. From Little Things...
- Victoria Wells
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
The 5000 Poppies Project started in Melbourne in 2013. A plan to plant 120 hand made knitted and crochet poppies at the Shrine of Remembrance to honour two fathers who fought in World War II : Wal Beasley and Stan Knight. The two creators, Lynn Berry and Margaret Knight wanted a personal tribute, and what is more personal than something made with love?
From those humble beginnings, the project took on a life of its own, involving people from around Australia and the world, including me.
2014 marked 100 years since the beginning of World War I. The red poppy that grew on the fields of Flanders in the years after WWI had become a symbol of both the great loss and of hope. Knitting poppies for their father’s Berry and Knight intrigued and then got participation from friends and strangers. People wanted to make poppies to honour their own losses in war.
The pair approached Federation Square in Melbourne for support to create a community art participation project. Berry offered classes in Fed Square on how to make poppies, set up a blog, was then interviewed by the ABC, and the project took off. The original target of 5,000 was reached in the first 5 months. The project included major installations in Fed Square, The Shrine of Remembrance and the International Flower and Garden Show in Melbourne in 2015, the Chelsea Flower Show in London and Australian Memorial Park in Fromelles, France in 2016 culminating at the Australian War Memorial and Parliament House in Canberra in 2018 for the Centenary of the end of WWI. There were also many other smaller installations in Australia along the way, and a permanent display of ‘A Nation Weeps’ at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. The finished number of poppies collected was over one million, and it was estimated more than 50,000 volunteers were involved in making and assembling these spectacular installations. There were many more poppies that did not make it to the project that were held and displayed in communities all over the world.
Across Europe there were many commemorations of the First World War. Special services in cathedrals and churches, exhibitions, movies, and a recreation of a football match between the British and German trenches, marked the beginning of the war. In Australia similar events were programmed. For Australia it marks more than the war; it is seen as the time and event that Australia became a nation. Fighting for a colonial master in a country most people in would barely have heard of, Australian men offered themselves. Gallipoli marked a turning point in Australian history which is held close. Thousands of people travel from Australia to Turkey each year to be on the beach when the sun rises on 25 April. This is not a glorification of war but a marking of the change in the country but also a beginning.
One art installation, at the Tower of London, also had poppies. Blood Swept Lands and Sea of Red by Paul Cummings (ceramicist) and Tom Piper (landscape architect) positioned 888,246 ceramic poppies, made in a studio by many volunteers under instructions, and placed by more volunteers in the moat of the Tower of London. The poppies were then sold to raise money for charities that support returning soldiers.
The UK spent millions of pound in different events to mark the centenary, but this was not without critics. The No Glory campaign wanted to dampen the rush to glorify war and produce something that would honour and remember. Brian Eno, musician, producer, writer, contributed a performed piece that accompanied the book Forgotten Voices of the Great War, by Maz Arthur with the Imperial War Museum. The book had transcripts of letters and other text from men who were on the front lines. Eno stated “If you ever wanted to be dissuaded from going to war then they are possibly the best texts for it.”
I participated in the 5000 Poppies Project from a small Victorian town called Trentham. I hosted how to crochet your own poppy classes, I made a few, thinking about my grandfather and his brothers, we offered some to the Melbourne Project and then kept many for our own swag. I was amazed at the number of women who wanted to contribute. They would deliver the poppies to my work with the story of their loved one. Most country towns across the nation have an Avenue of Honour and/or a cenataph. The latter is always engraved with the names of the young men who lost their lives. For many towns it was a whole generation of men who would have been fathers, husbands, farmers, shop owners, teachers, friends. Sometimes there are multiples of the same family name; a whole generation of males wiped out. Some of these towns never recovered.
For me the poppies made for the 5000 Poppies Project are the ultimate form of remembrance. They are usually made by women to remember a particular loved one. They are often made at home, in private. They are not costly. They are made with love. There is no fanfare, no pomp. Each poppy comes then comes together with the others to show that together we are a whole that is more than the sum of the parts.
Socks
By Jessie Pope (1868 - 1914)
Shining pins that dart and click
In the fireside’s sheltered peace
Check the thoughts that cluster thick
20 plain and then decrease.
He was brave - well, so was I -
Keen and merry, but his lip
Quivered when he said goodbye -
Purl the seam-stitch, purl and slip.
Never used to living rough,
Lots of things he’d go to learn;
Wonder if he’s warm enough -
Knit 2, catch 2, knit 1, turn.
Hark! The paper-boys again!
Wish that shout could be suppressed;
Keeps one always on the strain -
Knit off 9, and slip the rest.
Wonder if he’s fighting now,
What he’s done an’ where he’s been;
He’ll come out on top, somehow -
Slip 1, knit 2, purl 14.
Taken from Lines of Fire; Women Writers of World War 1 Ed M R Higonnet (Plume 1999)
I would like to express my thanks to both Lynn Berry and Trentham Neighbourhood Centre for assistance with writing this post. I have added some extra photos they supplied me with.
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