A fitting tribute
The third invitation in our ‘season of invitation’ started with a message from John Beavan, the head teacher at Scamptons’ Pollyplatt Community Junior School reading….
Dear Sue,
We’ve had an idea about Remembrance Day, and were wondering if we could erect a temporary structure coming out of the porch of the church which would house lots of poppies. Together with an artist, all of the children of the two schools and local nursery would construct the poppies that would then be put in an archway structure that would come out of the porch and down the path. The children of both schools would come to the church to hold an outdoor act of remembrance, hopefully with a representative of the church to lead the short service. The RAF Scampton base is keen to take part in the project and would like to attend too and are providing a hanger for the artist to work with the children. The idea is that we make enough poppies to represent everyone who has died during conflicts since World War 1. There would also be some larger poppies that would be on tent pegs that could be stuck in the ground one for each war grave.
We are also hoping to create flags – one for each school and one for the RAF base. It was thought that these could be placed at the start of the poppy arch.
What do you think? Is this a non-starter?
Well from this idea a community remembrance commemoration service was jointly planned between; Scampton Church, Scampton Church of England Junior School, Scampton Pollyplatt Community Junior School, Curiosity Creators, Playmates Nursery, Aviation Heritage (Lincolnshire), The Dambusters Inn, and RAF Scampton.