Memorial for Covid-19 victims at St Paul’s
The Prince of wales has spoken movingly of the ‘‘heartbreak and tragedy’’ wrought by Covid-19 as he launched Britain’s first national memorial to the tens of thousands of victims of the pandemic at St Paul’s Cathedral. In a video address yesterday, the Prince said the memorial and an online book of remembrance would help grieving relatives and friends to not only ‘‘recall our loss and sorrow’’ but also ‘‘to be thankful for everything good that those we have loved brought into our lives’’. The online book, called
Rememberme and available at rememberme 2020. uk, allows families to upload a photograph of a loved one and include a tribute to go with it. The book and memorial, the results of a conversation between the Very Rev Dr David Ison, the Dean of St Paul’s, and the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Sarah Mullally, is available for people of all faiths. It is also not necessary to prove a person died of Covid-19 to make a submission. The physical memorial, being planned for an inner porch in the north transept, will be installed at a later date. Oliver Caroe, the architect behind the memorial and who holds the historic post of Surveyor of the Fabric to St Paul’s Cathedral, lost his mother to Covid-19. It is thought to be the first national memorial for a pandemic – none exists for the Spanish Flu – and the first online memorial that the cathedral, itself a tribute to the victims of the Great Fire of London in 1666, has instituted.