Stunning display honours ghosts of the past

For more than 150 years the village of Pirbright has known a close association with the armed forces, and this year the community has come together to create a stunning display of more than 1,500 poppies to honour service men and women past, present and future.

Inspired by the Tower of London installation of 2014, the suggestion was put out to the community to create a sea of poppies in the churchyard at St Michael and All Angels Church Pirbright, and the community responded enthusiastically.

Church warden Helen Whitworth, who led the project, recalls sacks of empty plastic bottles appearing in the church porch every day to be distributed to volunteers who cut them to shape.

Other volunteers were recruited to spray them red and add the distinctive black centre of the poppy. More volunteers glued hundreds of flowers on to sticks for “planting”.

Local artists sculpted a “ghost soldier”, a poignant tribute to the fallen, to stand at the centre of the display, and a cross two metres high from which poppies flow in a “river of blood”.

Finally, last week, the installation was put together, with yet more volunteers planting the poppies to create the spectacle for Remembrance Sunday (8 November), and Armistice Day (Wednesday, 11 November).

As the project progressed Pirbright’s sister church, St Marks’ in Normandy, added their support and contributions so, in acknowledgement, the Pirbright team also created a river of poppies flowing from the huge cross which stands in St Marks’s churchyard to echo the installation at St Michael’s.

Both churches and communities are proud to honour all those who have passed through Pirbright and Normandy in service of our country, and to pay tribute to those who died.

Services of Remembrance will take place at St Michael and All Angels Church Pirbright and at St Mark’s Wyke, Normandy, at 10am on Sunday.