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Villagers' emotion at Remembrance poppy response

Susie RackWest Midlands
Donna Eccleston A group of nine volunteers, including two men, stand together at the entrance to a churchyard between two large remembrance displays covered in handmade poppies. The displays, mounted on stone gateposts, are decorated with red, white and purple crocheted and fabric poppies, with matching poppy-covered panels extending along the low churchyard wall on either side. The volunteers are dressed in coats, hoodies and hats suitable for cool weather and are posing on a paved entrance to a stone church with arched windows.Donna Eccleston
Donna Eccleston, left, organised the poppy display with members of Wombourne Woman's Institute, helped by villagers

Thousands of poppies handcrafted by villagers have been attached to a church wall in Wombourne for Remembrance Day.

Organiser Donna Eccleston said the size of the response to the project she started with fellow Wombourne Women's Institute member, Helen Standish-Bevan, took her breath away.

Originally they hoped to cover the village cenotaph, but they received so many felt, knitted, crocheted and clay donations, they now cover an outer wall and grounds of St Benedict Biscop Church in the village.

"It's much, much bigger than we thought it was going to be when we started," Eccleston said, after putting together the display on Sunday. "We've just stood back and gone, 'woah'.

"It really has been emotional."

Donna Eccleston A woman with shoulder length blonde hair wearing a purple hoodie, black-and-purple fingerless gloves, dark glasses, and a knitted purple, blue and white bobble hat attaches a handmade red poppy to a large triangular display. The grey fabric-covered structure is decorated with oversized red poppies, white flowers, purple crocheted poppies, green leaves and smaller red poppies, many of them handcrafted. Three small heart-shaped pins are visible near the centre of the display. The scene is outdoors on a grassy area, with hedges, gravestones and autumn trees in the background.Donna Eccleston
Eccleston and other volunteers put the display together on Sunday

Villagers have been leaving their creations at the village hall, which Eccleston manages with her husband.

"The letterbox has just been stuffed with poppies," she said.

Offerings included one made by a villager's mother, who had passed away.

"Things like that have just been...it's lovely," she said.

Local organisations including Wombourne Guides, Dementia Singing Friends and the Red Lion Craft Group lent a hand, with participants ranging from pre-schoolers up to nonagenarians.

The poppies decorating the church wall were attached to a run of netting by WI members over the course of eight sessions.

"They're all sewn on," Eccleston said. "The WI ladies have said they're going to carry a needle and thread with them whenever they're in the village just in case something begins to pop off."

Recycled bottles turned into poppies also line the path from the road to the church, and two poppy fields in the church grounds include metal-cast and giant wooden flowers along with stones painted by local children.

"I think we all thought it was going to look good," Eccleston added.

"It just looks so beautiful. It's really stunning."

Donna Eccleston A churchyard boundary wall is covered with thousands of handmade red remembrance poppies, creating a bright display along a roadside pavement. In the background, a church noticeboard displays Remembrance-themed posters and large decorative poppies. A stone grave marker stands on a grassy area inside the church grounds, with autumn trees showing orange and brown foliage behind it. Two people are near the church entrance beside a stone gatepost.Donna Eccleston
The group plans to now build on the poppy display every year

She explained her dad had been a big supporter of the British Legion before he died, and her mum had raised £7,000 for the charity through knitting poppies over the past decade.

"I think everybody is so proud of the poppy," she said. "It's such a lovely symbol."

The display will stay up for two weeks before being carefully stored away for next year.

"What we really want is to build, so it becomes something we can add to every year," the organiser added.

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