Historic dockyard in Chatham opens Remembrance Threads project

KentOnline / KMTV

Thousands of handmade poppies covered HMS Cavalier, the last surviving Royal Navy destroyer of the Second World War, to honour the lives lost in the conflict.  Hollie Spires reports

Transcript

00:00Remembrance Threads is a powerful community-led exhibition weaving together stories of service,

00:06sacrifice and memory, all through the medium of textile art. Thousands of handmade poppies,

00:12each one a symbol of remembrance, sewn with care, now stand beyond HMS Cavalier,

00:19the last surviving Royal Navy destroyer of the Second World War. Each poppy is handmade by

00:24volunteers, each with their own individual story. Well we heard that they were looking for volunteers

00:30from the community to make up to 11,000 poppies for this Threads of Remembrance event. We are knitters,

00:38we are also members of Medway and Maidens Seroptimist group and sometimes get involved in knitting

00:43projects with them to improve lives of women and children and things like this. So we decided to

00:49get involved and we actually made 136 poppies but there was a significance to that and I'll let

00:54my sister explain. Our grandfather, maternal grandfather was born in 1889 until present day

01:01now would be 136 and he served in the First World War and the Second World War with the Royal Navy.

01:07And he was actually based here in 1942 in Chatham so the fact that you know he could have been somewhere

01:15around here we felt it was really nice to be part of that. The project which is supported by Medway

01:21Council aims to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Second World War. This has been a phenomenal

01:26community project. The Dockyard working with many other different organisations and individuals

01:32who have taken their time to create poppies to place here. We were looking at originally at 11,000.

01:39The community have done phenomenal work and we've now got over 20,000 which is remarkable.

01:45I've been chatting to some residents today, some people have taken part and what's been really

01:49interesting for me, some people have produced lots of poppies but some have produced a very specific

01:54number. So for example, one resident who I was speaking to, her dad served in the Royal Navy

02:00for 22 years so she produced 22 poppies. So you can see there lots of individual stories

02:07and experiences that have fed into this project. I'm incredibly proud of the work that's happened

02:12here and I pay tribute to everyone who's played their part in making sure that the threads of

02:17remembrance here at the Dockyard is such a poignant exhibition for everyone to take on board.

02:24Each poppy here speaks without words, a small act of love in memory of lives never forgotten.

02:30Holly Spires for KMCV in Chatham.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended