please empty your brain below
Close to the ArcelorMittal Orbit which I see has extended opening hours whilst the Shroud of Somme installation is in the park.

John | 09.11.18 - 7:12 a.m. | #

The presentation of the exhibition of shrouds looks even more striking now that the full number are present.
It brings home the enormity of the loss of life, far more than a list of names on a wall.

YDU | 09.11.18 - 8:32 a.m. | #

And this is just the missing (presumed dead) from one admittedly very large battle. Total UK military deaths in the first war were about ten times this. And the total number of soldiers from all nations killed was more than ten times that, perhaps 10 million. And perhaps as many civilians, another 10 million. And both of those numbers again (around 20 million) wounded. Each one an individual human with their own life, family, friends. It is hard for the mind to grasp the scale.

Andrew | 09.11.18 - 8:57 a.m. | #

When I went yesterday around the raised area, there was a man reading out aloud via a loudspeaker system the names of the missing (presumed dead) & their regiments. I took several minutes to walk past and all the names read out were only William Anderson's... only their army units and or regiments were different. A truly shocking toll of life.

Doug Robinson | 09.11.18 - 11:56 a.m. | #

The online list of The Fallen has 18 William Andersons.

Andrew | 09.11.18 - 8:06 p.m. | #

When I was there yesterday afternoon, there was a lady reading the names, I thought at first that it was a recording but then I saw her at the corner of the field, reading from a lectern and sometimes hesitating about a pronunciation. Names were still starting with A, and in the tent which I walked through afterwards the whole list is on the walls.

amber | 09.11.18 - 9:25 p.m. | #

Not many times you blog the same subject twice in a week. Must have made a big impact.
I am at Cenotaph Sunday, but Monday can do Tower day and night and Stratford, plus (bonus) review the 2 way system.

"They Will Remember Them."

Bless You. You are not a bad Geezer.

scrumpy | 10.11.18 - 1:37 a.m. | #

Scrumpy: if you want to see "Beyond the Deepening Shadow" at the Tower, you need to get there tonight or tomorrow (Saturday or Sunday) as the 11th is the last time. Monday will be too late. I wonder how well attended it was on Friday in the rain.

dg writes: Very well attended.

Andrew | 10.11.18 - 8:28 a.m. | #

Thanks. So that is why they had all the barriers. It seemed excessive on Monday evening.

Andrew | 11.11.18 - 1:31 p.m. | #

I got to the Shrouds of the Somme for the last day on Sunday 18th. Quite well attended, but not packed. Many visitors had added their own personal tributes - poppies, photographs. The volunteers reading the names had reached "N", perhaps 2/3rd of the way through. It takes some time to read 72,000 names.

Evocatively, the calico shrouds had started to moulder, and the grass had risen up, as if the earth were reclaiming the dead. All burnished by a coppery glow at the going down of the sun.

Andrew | 20.11.18 - 2:12 p.m. | #











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