Pop along to war memorial display

Councillors Margaret Pattison and Ron Sands with their ceramic poppies.

Two Lancaster City Councillors - both proud owners of ceramic poppies - are seeking to replicate the Tower’s success this summer by inviting other ceramic poppy owners to join them at Morecambe’s seafront War Memorial for a Christmas display and mass photo opportunity.

Councillor Margaret Pattinson dreamed up the idea in discussions with fellow Councillor Ron Sands.

She said: “Ron and I were comparing our poppies, because no two of them are exactly identical, and I said to Ron ‘Let’s have a photo of us together with the poppies at the War Memorial, so that we can send it to friends with our Christmas cards’.

“And the idea of a mass gathering of other poppy-owners grew from that”.

Ron said: “The project is only feasible because of the internet and Facebook, which will enable us to publicise the event at virtually no cost.

“Nearly 900,000 poppies were created for the Tower of London installation, and every one of them has now been sold to benefit appropriate charities. Each poppy represents a soldier who died in World War I, so I like to think that if we have a successful turnout, it will be a fitting tribute to those soldiers as we approach the end of this commemorative year”.

The date for the photo call is Sunday, December 21, at 12.30pm.

Participants should email Ron to inform him of their attendance at [email protected]. m,