please empty your brain below
After work yesterday evening I made my way up to the Tower of London for "Beyond the Deepening Shadow" around 8:30.

Not too busy, but barriers all over the place were getting in the way, particularly the long chicanes at the entrance. Perhaps it was crowded earlier, perhaps they were worried at the prospect of masked protesters (I saw only one mask, not being worn), perhaps the crowds will build up later this week.

Quite moving as the individual flames slowly guttered and died.

Andrew | 06.11.18 - 2:55 p.m. | #

Trivial Observation: that Airfix chap looks eerily like Paul McCartney. Less Trivial Observation: the Shrouds installation certainly packs a punch just from your images DG, it must be quite affecting in the flesh.

Burntweenie | 07.11.18 - 7:29 a.m. | #

In my opinion the shrouds make the biggest and the right impact for armistice day. They bring home the huge human cost of modern war.

I have notice since last year how the mood around the red poppy has changed. In my youth of the 50’s and early 60’s the mood around armistice day was of remembering the dead and vowing never again. The veterans of both wars were still alive they did not swagger, they were remembering all those who had paid the ultimate price, their friends and comrades. Today many people have forgotten the real meaning of armistice day, and use it as a military victory celebration.

I really hope that people turn up to see the shrouds, these like the actual cemeteries in Flanders, make you see the true cost of war.

YDU | 07.11.18 - 8:15 a.m. | #

The shroud display is very moving: the numbers who died on the Somme are almost unimaginable. Almost because one can equate the 1 July number as just less than the average home attendance for Watford's league matches last season, and the horrific number with no known grave similarly to Manchester United. The million total is though unimaginable.

J. | 07.11.18 - 8:19 a.m. | #

200...

Joho | 07.11.18 - 8:57 a.m. | #

In terms of Canary Wharf and 'better ways to be thoughtful' I'd be inclined to agree, and would suggest the war memorial there, with no less than fourteen panels listing the names of the locals who gave their lives, provides just as chilling a representation of the scale of the human loss as any artwork.
I just looked on Flickr to look for an image, for reference. The search 'Canary Wharf War Memorial' produced more results than I expected, in that photos of the 'Airfix Man' came up among them. He has been here before.

RogerW | 07.11.18 - 9:11 a.m. | #

Whilst I am similarly skeptical of the recent 'remembrance experience' movement, I thought the comment below was unfairly snide:

"The crowd was more Havering & the Home Counties than you'd normally see in central London, perhaps tipped off by their midmarket tabloid of choice"

Flanders Valhalla | 07.11.18 - 11:16 a.m. | #

Most of the places I have been feel more adversely affected by WW2 instead of WW1, but the "human loss" is pretty much the best explanation why the United Kingdom seems thinking otherwise.

Patrickov | 07.11.18 - 11:41 a.m. | #

It's probably inevitable at this 100th anniversary but it is beginning to feel like there is something of a Remembrance Industry now.

The commodification of war and its consequences normalises it.

drD | 07.11.18 - 12:02 p.m. | #

There were more than a million casualties at the Somme, but of those only about a third were killed.

The numbers are staggering, however you present them.

Dave O | 07.11.18 - 12:41 p.m. | #

The 14 panels are not Canary Wharf locals, but the 700+ war dead from the London Joint City And Midland Bank. The memorial was originally sited in the bank's building on Leadenhall Street, and moved to Canary Wharf in 1993 by HSBC. (IanVisits)

Andrew | 07.11.18 - 3:08 p.m. | #

I stand corrected. Thanks, Andrew.

RogerW | 07.11.18 - 3:25 p.m. | #

I agree that if anyone is "using armistice day as a military victory celebration", such use should be soundly deplored.

However, maybe I have been reading the wrong stuff, but I haven't myself seen any evidence that anyone is actually doing this. Responses to the day seem to vary between polite indifference and genuine sorrow, but without any triumphalism that I have spotted.

Malcolm | 07.11.18 - 3:38 p.m. | #

Rather than triumphalism, there seems to be an upswing in vandalism of memorials, including this and this and this and this and this.

Andrew | 07.11.18 - 7:01 p.m. | #

Vandalism here too.

Gripper | 07.11.18 - 7:55 p.m. | #

‘only realised afterwards that it had not inspired me to reflect or remember’. A really interesting comment DG, wonder if others would agree.

By chance I’m staying in your manor tonight so look forward to seeing the shrouds tomorrow.

Concord | 07.11.18 - 9:26 p.m. | #

I have seen the Shrouds of the Somme twice now, once when laid out in front of City Hall in Bristol (about this time 2016), when there were about one third the number there is today, and again a couple of weeks back, also in Bristol when the full number were stacked to form a life-sized and terribly long trench.Both occasions were sobering and disturbing. But to see them all laid out as they are at Olympic Park must be poignant in the extreme.

David Hughes | 08.11.18 - 8:16 a.m. | #











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