Personal messages remember the fallen
MORE than 6,000 crosses and commemorative markers have been planted at Cardiff Castle to create a Field of Remembrance.
Each carries a personal message in memory of servicemen and women who died during the First World War and other conflicts.
The field was opened yesterday during a service attended by dignitaries including First Minister Carwyn Jones and Terry Whittles, national chairman of the Royal British Legion.
It is one of six Royal British Legion Fields of Remembrance, with others in London, Belfast, Gateshead, Staffordshire and Royal Wootton Bassett.
There will be more than 100,000 tributes planted across the six sites, taking the form of a cross, Muslim Crescent, Star of David, Sikh Khanda, Hindu Om or a secular tribute.
Mr Whittles said the events are particularly significant this year with the centenary of the Armistice on Sunday.
“It is also important that we remember those who were left behind,” he said. “In particular the women who worked in the factories and the mills, and that whole generation from the First World War who did so much for medicine, engineering and so on.
“That’s why the Legion this year is asking people to not just remember those who died, but also those who helped throughout, including all the Commonwealth nations.
“We have a thank you campaign in order to do that.”
Lance Corporal David Iveson, 32, from Cardiff, said he was “very honoured” to plant a cross in the field for his fallen friends.
L/Cpl Iveson was medically discharged from the Army after suffering back injuries when the vehicle he was travelling in hit a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2005.
“To be able to plant a cross here is a great honour,” he said.