Lost but not forgotten... 72,396 figures honour Somme heroes
EVERY one of the 72,396 British and Commonwealth soldiers whose bodies were never found after the Battle of the Somme will be remembered in a special tribute to be unveiled today.
It features foot-long figures to represent each of them, laid out shoulder to shoulder in London’s Olympic Park.
Each wears a calico shroud hand-sewn by Somerset artist Rob Heard, 53, who spent five years creating the art installation based on a list compiled by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
He said: “We’ve chosen to lay these figures out there with a gap between them.
“It is an ordered gap which is so important because they are individuals. They’re not a mass and each one is made to a name.” About 420,000 British soldiers, 200,000 French and half a million Germans were killed at the Somme in 1916.
Mr Heard began making the figures after he badly injured both hands in a car accident in 2013 and was unable to continue work as a wood carver.
He says: “I was in that dark place that a lot of people go to but it was a time when the lads were coming back from Afghanistan with their arms and legs missing and I just thought, ‘This is ridiculous. There are a lot of people worse off’.
“I got thinking about the numbers and then about those in previous wars. I realised how difficult it was to visualise these huge numbers and thought through ways I could physically represent them.”
Mr Heard made the figures in his shed in Watchet, Somerset, with just two helpers. The Shrouds Of The Somme have been on display in smaller numbers in cities this year but this is the first and only time all the figures have been laid out together.
They can be viewed until November 18 and will then be sold in aid of the Armed Forces charity SSAFA and the War Graves Commission.