Armistice Day: Mourning glory

Four million people are expected to visit the London tribute to those killed in the Great War. Joe Shute describes how it has captured the world's imagination

On a warm day this summer, Crawford Butler, the longest-serving yeoman warder at the Tower of London, dropped to one knee and planted a poppy in the soil of its ancient moat. Tall-stemmed, swirling folds of scarlet clay against his immaculate white glove, the flower was the first poignant and instant symbol of remembrance on the 6.4 grassy hectares.

That was July 17: today Mr Butler cannot begin to guess where his poppy stands. More than 16000 volunteers from across the world have since planted tens of thousands more. Today, on Armistice Day, the last flower - the 888246th - will be placed there. Each represents a British or Commonwealth soldier killed during World War 1, a single drop in an ocean of blood.

"I did think of all the numbers when I first put my poppy in," says Mr Butler, 64, a veteran with 22 years service in the Royal Hussars. "But when you see it now, it just takes your breath away."

Over recent weeks, queues stretching back up over Tower Bridge were testament to the fact that the crimson tide lapping against the stonework of the Tower is set to become the enduring image of remembrance in this centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War. Every ceramic poppy on display has been bought by the public, purchased online at £25 each, raising more than £1-million for each of the six armed forces charities involved.

By today, the time the display is completed, more than four million people will have visited. Many stand in silent contemplation, more still take photographs and share them online, spreading the word about this extraordinary venture that has so captured imaginations.

The inspiration was a will written by an unknown Derbyshire soldier who died in Flanders. Soldiers were encouraged to write notes for their families in the event of their death but his was never signed. Instead, at the bottom he penned two lines of verse: "The blood-swept lands and seas of red, where angels fear to tread."

Ceramic artist Paul Cummins came across the note in a library in Chesterfield a year ago and then teamed up with acclaimed theatre designer Tom Piper and Historic Royal Palaces, which runs the Tower, to bring the installation to life. Cummins's pottery in Derby has been working at full capacity to produce the handmade flowers.

On its completion today, revealed from above, the ancient White Tower, built by William the Conqueror, would be encircled by red, its round black roof at the heart of the world's most dramatic poppy.

When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, accompanied by Prince Harry, visited in August, some 125000 poppies had been planted. The sight moved the Duchess to tears. Last month the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh made their own visibly sombre visit.

"This was always going to have a huge impact," says General the Lord Dannatt, former head of the British Army and Constable of the Tower, who accompanied the royals. "Each poppy represents a life lost and a family shattered. It has just caught the imagination of a nation and the younger generation."

Initially it was expected that around 50 volunteers a day would sign up to plant the poppies,but numbers have far exceeded that. At times, the waiting list for would-be volunteers has been 8000. John Brown, the deputy governor of the Tower, says by November 11 some 25000 people will have been involved. "These are people from all over the country and all over the world," says Brown. "A lot have a family connection with the First World War and want to tell their story. We've had people fly in from Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.''

On one day in July, he says, cabin crews from every American Airlines plane that landed at Heathrow put in a shift planting poppies at the Tower. Many volunteers, such as university lecturer Ann Mullard, have been inspired to research their relatives who served in the Great War. Her mother's great uncle, Private George Cantrell, never returned home to Kidderminster. "Putting each poppy in does make you stop and think," she says.

As the volunteers, dressed in red T-shirts and gardening gloves, work, the public gazes down on them. Every day their numbers swell. No one who sees it leaves untouched by the beauty or by the scale of loss it represents.

Indeed, so powerful is the imagery that it is engaging a new generation in remembrance. Jake Ball, a 21-year-old music student from west London, bought a ceramic poppy to place on the grave of his grandfather, who was killed in the Second World War.

"It's overwhelming to imagine each poppy is an actual person," he says. "I feel proud when I look down."

And renewing the potency of remembrance for future generations will be the greatest legacy of Blood Swept Lands and Sea of Red.

To see the moat is one thing. To be at the Tower at dusk, when the sun is setting and lights flickering on along the Thames, is something else. From a small grassy mound amid the poppies, the names of a few hundred soldiers who died in WW1 - submitted by relatives or veterans' organisations - are read out and then Last Post is played.

Barely a fraction of the names of the Fallen will have been heard by today. But even if they cannot all be spoken of, they will never be forgotten. - © The Daily Telegraph