Island will be spilling over with poppies in tribute to war dead
A CORNER of an island nature reserve has been turned into a sea of poppies to remember the fallen of two world wars.
More than 1,000 poppies spill over a wall at the lighthouse on Coquet Island, off Amble in Northumberland.
The crocheted woollen flowers are the work of Hilary BrookerCarey, who has been a volunteer for 27 years on the island, which is owned by the Duke of Northumberland and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest managed as a reserve by the RSPB.
Hilary, holder of the RSPB’s president’s award, the highest accolade for a volunteer, has spent the last year creating a total of 1,070 poppies. The display, admired by the Duke of Northumberland when he visited the island recently, reflects the poppy installations around the country which commemorated the First World War.
In 2014 the Tower of London marked the centenary of the outbreak of war with Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, which saw the moat filled with 888,246 ceramic poppies in a display created by artists Paul Cummins and Tom Piper and visited by more than five million people.
Weeping Window by the same artist was a cascade comprising several thousand handmade ceramic poppies pouring from high points to the ground below.
It visited 19 locations around the UK and was seen by 4.6 million people. At Woodhorn Museum in Northumberland in 2015, it cascaded 55ft from the mine headstock. It also stretched from the keep at Carlisle Castle last year.
“The image of weeping window had such a huge impact on me,” Hilary said. “I thought it was fantastic and it lingers in my mind, not only in November but on days