'Field Of Poppies' Display At St Michael & All Angels

Wall hanging remembers those parishioners who died in WW1

Almost 300 people attended the Choral Requiem Mass at St Michael & All Angels Church on Remembrance Sunday. This year it was marked with a special 'field of remembrance' wall-hanging, displaying more than 100 handmade poppies, each carrying the name of one of those remembered on the church's World War One memorials.

Image; Jim Cox

Also on display - in words, photographs and newspaper cuttings - were the stories of the men from St Michael's and Bedford Park who were killed in 1914 - the first fruits of a four-year research and remembrance project for which the church has received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The introductory exhibition also tells the story of Violet Long - the only woman whose name appears on the memorials. Further stories will be told in the coming years and the church has invited volunteers from all over Chiswick to take part in the research.

Just before 11am the congregation processed to the War Memorial outside the church where a trumpeter played before and after the two-minute silence. The vicar Father Kevin Morris laid a wreath and so did children from the Children's Church, and the choir led the congregation in singing Abide With Me.

November 11, 20144