A COLCHESTER care home and its residents have created a poignant mural to commemorate our brave fallen soldiers.
Stanway Green Lodge Residential Care Home, in Heath Road, Colchester, has created a touching display in the care home’s front garden in the lead up to Remembrance Day this weekend.
The Remembrance Garden display features two large dates cut from plywood and painted black which signify the start and end of the First World War, which lasted from July 1914 until November 1918.
Between the two poppy-covered dates, which have replica barbed wire draped around the lower parts of them, is an ominous and solemn silhouette of a soldier kneeling.
The garden feature is finished off with about 200 poppies creatively made from plastic bottle waste and solar lights are in place so residents and visitors can pay their respects when it is dark.
The project started in September and residents spent several days making the poppies for the display. They also received help from the pupils of Gosbecks Primary School, in Owen Ward Close, Colchester, who crafted some of the red poppies for the display.
Residents of Stanway Green Lodge Residential Care Home were involved with the project and thinks it is a touching tribute to remember the fallen soldiers.
Resident Joyce Dalton said: "It’s a very different looking tribute with the dates and soldier.
"The poppies look amazing and look real."
Another resident, Betty Ford, also commented on the finished project.
She said: "We made around sixty to eighty of these poppies, but had no idea how lovely they would look once placed on the garden."
Remembrance Day will take place this Saturday, marking the day the First World War came to an end.
Remembrance Sunday, meanwhile, will remember the significant contribution of the British military’s soldiers in the First World War and Second World War, as well as more recent conflicts.
Jo Bishop, Gosbecks Primary Schools’ literacy lead, who was involved with the project, is proud of the children for taking part in it.
She said: "The pupils love visiting the care home and they were really excited to be making poppies as part of this project.
"We look forward to visiting them over the Christmas period."
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