A field of poppies at Chelsea

It’s one the highlights of Chelsea this year – and truly takes your breath away,

but the story behind this installation is far more modest.

Lynn Berry and Margaret Knight originally set out to crochet 120 poppies to “plant” at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne Australia for Remembrance Day in 2013 in honour of their fathers. But since then over 350,000 individually crocheted poppies have been sent from all over the world including 5000 from UK. Quantas flew over the poppies free of charge to London (which took up half of the hold!) and they will be flown back to Australia next week.

On Press Day the Chelsea pensioners were piped through the field of poppies to Waltzing Matilda and they all started to sing along!

Steve Clark from Chilstone also spotted Johnson Beharry, who was awarded the Victoria Cross in 2005, and managed to introduce him to Philip Johnson, the installation’s designer.

The ambassador’s parents from the Meningitis Now garden were also invited to walk through the poppies which was a humbling but lovely moment.

You can find out more about the origins of this amazing installation at https://5000poppies.wordpress.com/about/

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