A Prototype Display for the Ceramic Poppies

A Prototype Display for the Ceramic Poppies:

Since the 5 ceramic poppies arrived from The Tower of London, we have been trying to come up with a way to put them on display in the Village Hall so that they can be used to commemorate the  5 soldiers from Castle Coop who were killed in WW1.

Arranging the Poppies for Display:

The poppies arrived on quite long steel stalks – about 14″ or so and we’ve been trying to think of a way to arrange them so that they can all be seen together in a way that doesn’t look too stiff or formal.

Here is what we’ve come up with!

 The Prototype

Step 1:

Amazingly, the Chairman of the Village Hall has an original WW1 barbed wire screw  picket. It was found on a Somme field as part of the annual ‘Iron Harvest‘ and he’s very kindly donated it so that the ceramic poppies can be displayed against it.

During the First World War, screw pickets were used for the installation of wire obstacles; these were metal rods with eyelets for holding strands of wire, and a corkscrew-like end that could literally be screwed into the ground rather than hammered, so that wiring parties could work at night near enemy soldiers and not reveal their position by the sound of hammers.

(source: Wikipedia)

It still has a bit of (modern) Somme mud on it.

We thought we’d try entwining the poppies around it, bending the steel stems so that the flower heads face upwards as if growing towards the sun.

Step 2:

The Castle Coop gamekeeper then produced a bit of barbed wire which the Chairman of the V. H. wound around the whole thing, having bent the stems a bit more:

If other villagers give the arrangement the thumbs up, we’ll need to encase it inside a box frame. Then it can be put on permanent display inside the Village Hall next to or near the Rolls of Honour on which the names of the 5 soldiers are written.

What do you think?

Do you think it will look appropriate?

We are all very anxious to show the Poppies off to best advantage.

Yours absolutely thrilled to think that our 5 poor soldiers will now each have their own poppy by their names in their own Village Hall,