please empty your brain below
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I shall not bother to visit, maybe glance from the top of a passing bus.
I think there was a plan once to put water back in the moat, that is what I would like to see.
John | 07.11.14 - 7:36 a.m. | #
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It is impressive, isn't it?
I turned up at around 2pm on a cloudy weekday afternoon this week. It was busy - busier than I was expecting - but you could still get to the front if you picked your spot and were patient. The mix of people on the bus was somewhat different - many more grey heads than usual - but the tube was working ok!
Some have criticised the installation for "prettifying" a sombre event. For me, it was sobering to see quite how many poppies there were - the mind struggles to comprehend what 900,000 looks like. And that was just the UK and Colonies.
Others have made a perceptive link between the lake of blood-red poppies in the moat and deaths inside the Tower - for centuries, the Tower was a symbol of Royal power, planted in the City to remind the commoners who was in charge.
Andrew | 07.11.14 - 7:41 a.m. | #
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Whilst undoubtedly a moving sight, I find the militaristic bombast of Remembrance Day disturbing (there is nothing "Glorious" about being blown to pieces). And, like too many acts of remembrance, this one is partisan: the number of poppies, huge though it is, only represents the WW1 dead who happened to be citizens of the British Empire, and ignores not only the other side but also our own allies. They were just as brave, and their deaths just as pointless, and we should remember them too.
| 07.11.14 - 8:00 a.m. | #
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I went at 8am last Sunday by which time it was already really quite packed, some people appear to only visit the wider part of the installation adjacent to Tower Hill Station, but an amble along the riverfront gives a really more close up view and is well worth making the effort to do.
Fishislandskin | 07.11.14 - 8:04 a.m. | #
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I too took a detour on my way to work, albeit slightly further than DG's. At just after nine there were a good number of people milling about, including a gaggle of school children and a university course group, but it was still easy to reach the front. The bright sunlight, which by now had reached such a level that there was nowhere to observe from on the western side without the sun in one's eyes, did indeed highlight the poppies in a wonderful way whilst making photography a bit tricky.
As other commenters have suggested, this is an extremely powerful way of representing the sheer waste of life during the Great War. I only wish that, one hundred years after its start, we could bring ourselves to remember all those who died, not just those fighting for the Commonwealth. I realise this would require a space many times greater in size than the Tower's moat, or poppies somewhat smaller than the present ones, but this would seem a more proper and fitting way to commemorate a conflict which touched so many.
Robert Johnson | Homepage | 07.11.14 - 8:12 a.m. | #
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I went a few week's ago as a volunteer and spent a morning assembling and planting poppies. I don't know how other volunteer groups seemed to work, but we all started off quite industriously following the briefing session (there is a bit of assembly required for each one) and it was only as we started to finish that the wider significance of it all really came to the fore.
There were many photos taken, but also a lot of quiet reflection. I found myself to be one of many silently wondering around the moat and contemplating the enormity of it all.
A rewarding, yet poignant, morning.
Alex | 07.11.14 - 10:36 a.m. | #
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I went yesterday at about 10am. Absolutely rammed. One thing I noticed being a work/school day was I'd never seen so many grey haired pensioners in one place in my life. Plenty of freedom passes used yesterday I think.
| 07.11.14 - 10:42 a.m. | #
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The Quakers have created a map showing how many poppies would be needed if it commemorated everyone who was killed in WW1 - a sobering 19.5 million people. The poppies would go around the moat and continue along the Embankment ending up at Buckingham Palace.
The map is shown in this Guardian article here.
Martin | 07.11.14 - 10:47 a.m. | #
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I've been to see the poppies three times so far, twice during the day and once (just earlier this week) after dark. It has brought a lump to my throat each time.
I'm not sure how much of a connection there might be, if any, but I actually came across this single poppy, back in June, at the NZ memorial at Hyde Park Corner.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/32293736@N04/14649763048/
I must admit that this one lone poppy - and the realisation that someone had obviously brought it all the way from New Zealand, to plant it here - left me with tears pouring down my face.
RogerW | 07.11.14 - 11:26 a.m. | #
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Given that Boris refused to keep the Olympic Park open I think he's got a cheek pontificating on what the Tower should do!
Kim | 07.11.14 - 12:49 p.m. | #
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We went last Saturday afternoon {01/11/14}, it was very busy despite Tower Hill station being closed.
Steve |Barker | Homepage | 07.11.14 - 1:44 p.m. | #
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DG, a compliment to you here:
I went to the poppies.hrp.org site and it just looked too commercial or too unemotional or flashy ... or something. I think your photographs are much more impressive in that they show the scale and mood of the installation without too much fluff. This is a very moving public art exhibit, and as I'll only be able to see it on a computer monitor, your presentation here of the experience was appreciated.
| 07.11.14 - 1:59 p.m. | #
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I went yesterday, got there about 11am and wow was it heaving ... I got stuck in a huge crowd on the north side where they'd put barriers up to stop pedestrians spilling out onto the road ... when I finally made it round to the west side there was more room to move
TOP TIP ... there's a disabled viewing area cordoned off on the west side down towards the Tower entrance, so I did make it up to the railings and get a good view
however, I must admit I found the crowds just as (if not more) impressive than the installation
Caroline | 07.11.14 - 5:05 p.m. | #
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The main reason the poppies can't stay in the moat is of course that it needs to be clear for the Tower's upcoming season of corporate tented Christmas parties.
http://www.pavilion-toweroflondon.co.uk/news_25.php
diamond geezer | Homepage | 07.11.14 - 5:39 p.m. | #
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I'd suggest that the best way to bring the display at the Tower of London to an end would be for the controlled explosion of a couple of hand grenades and mortar rounds into the moat. This might get through to the people watching what awful carnage took place in the trenches.
| 07.11.14 - 5:59 p.m. | #
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"I'd suggest that the best way to bring the display at the Tower of London to an end would be for the controlled explosion of a couple of hand grenades and mortar rounds into the moat. This might get through to the people watching what awful carnage took place in the trenches"
Well, word has it that they're already considering ways to commemorate the centenary of 1918, so, hey, why not get in early and put that in as a suggestion?
(twat)
RogerW | 07.11.14 - 7:49 p.m. | #
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At the risk of being lynched, I am amazed how a load of plastic poppies has become such an attraction. WW1 was appalling carnage but I can visualise the horror by imagining the near 900 thousand Empire dead as equivalent to 10 full houses at Wembley or the first day on the Somme as approximately a typical attendance at the Madstad in Reading. Even more than WW2, the Great War was an awful waste that will never be forgotten, poppies or not.
Julian | Homepage | 07.11.14 - 8:44 p.m. | #
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Excuse my ignorance, but it was only when I saw the old photo of the recruits assembling in the moat that I realised the significance of the location. Photo and contemporary comment for those who may not have seen it:
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/the-spectator/2014/08/the-spectator-at-war-the-inalienable-right-to-enlist/
A dear old lady who used to live next door to me told me she had a clear memory of her eldest brother coming to bid their mother goodbye in 1914, looking strange and impressive in his army uniform. Her mother stood at the gate sobbing as he strode off down the road, and the five-year-old clutched her mother’s skirts and sobbed too. They never saw him again.
Great Aunt Annie | 07.11.14 - 10:09 p.m. | #
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It's due to take two weeks to carefully remove the poppies from the moat, so still time to see it after 11 Nov.
welshkaren | 08.11.14 - 7:47 a.m. | #
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Part of the display is being retained until the end of the month according to the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29965477
But this is probably more to do with the practicalities of removing them than any real extension.
Martin | 08.11.14 - 9:59 a.m. | #
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