Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Poppies




Following my previous post on the courageous WW1 soldier, John Thomas Bloor, I thought it would would be worth reflecting more on The Great War on Armistice Day. The brilliant poppy exhibit at the Tower of London is a poignant reminder of its scale of tragedy.  The nearly 900,000 ceramic flowers that currently fill the moat of the Tower represent just Britain's losses. Entente or Allied forces suffered 6 million deaths: Canada had 65,000 losses. It has been estimated that the conflict cost the lives of up to 37 million civilian and military personnel among all nations involved.  The magnitude of these infernal statistics is hard to comprehend and we should never forget that every single one of those fallen souls had a human story just like Private Bloor. I'll let the photos do the talking...







I'll finish up with a verse from Robert Laurence Binyon's immortal poem:

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them"

2 comments:

Dr Ian K Bloor said...

Another touching, heart-wrenching, heart-warming story. We will remember them.

Mad Dog said...

We will indeed, Ian.