Up the Line
REMEMBRANCE 2009
JOHN MCKIERNAN
Originally Presented to Goldsmiths University of London, Centre for Cultural Studies (May 2010)
Index
1. Introduction
2. Brief Outline of Event
3. Creating an Abstract4. Background to the Curator
4.1 The Royal British Legion
4.2 Harry Patch
5. Storytelling
5.1 Spoken Word6. Gesture
7. Cemetery Space
8. Memory
9. Conclusion
10. Future
11. Acknowledgements
12. Images
13. Bibliography
14. Notes to the Event Copyright: All rights reserved and remain the property of Platform-7[i]
1. Introduction
On the 11th November 2009, at 7.15 in the evening, a small crowd walked through two gates of Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, South East London. As the rain gently fell, this small crowd became an audience of over 300 and the cemetery a place of performance. Poets, dancers and musicians began performing amid light and film illuminated trees and gravestones, along the softly lit path. The event was a form of tribute to Harry Patch, the last UK survivor of WWI[ii], a war that delineated borders and altered art, politics, economics, society and the culture of experience forever.
This document has been written as an enquiry into this experimental event created for Remembrance 2009. The objective was to ascertain whether an audience could be subtly engaged in a serious subject while being part of, what was for the majority, a unique experience. By observing the audience engaging with the performances’, and reviewing written feedback, this paper discusses how the event can be considered in the context of physical space, cognitive interpretation and future events.
The paper begins with the motivations behind organising such an event, challenges the marketing of the remembrance poppy and discusses personal memory and how this informed the initial creation. The paper continues with how memory is passed on to others through storytelling and gesture. How space and monuments struggle to be noticed by the modern viewer and concludes with a brief summary of how the event may have embedded an acute memory within the audience.Unfortunately a major rainstorm hit while the performance area and equipment was being cleared resulting in the audience comments book being dropped and ruined.
2. Brief Outline of Event
After writing the proposal for the local authority and others, it was important to contact a range of peers to get an idea of the feasibility, whether the motives appeared genuine and gain opinion on the likelihood of success. Platform-7 contacted artists, with whom there had been previous collaborations, to explore possibilities of them creating a piece of work for free. Once a level of confidence was achieved that the event could be created approaches were made to the local authority, to whom the cemetery belongs, and to the Friends of Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery (FoBLC), a volunteer custodial group.
3. Creating an Abstract
It was important that the event steered away from a determinacy of thought (Hegel). Dealing, on a profound level, with an historical episode like WWI meant avoiding many of the obvious approaches; brass bands, marching, salutes. Creating a more abstract event it was believed, would encourage people to connect at a level of their own choosing.The event was not a form of dérive, a ‘rapid passage through varied ambiences […] involving playful-constructive behaviour and awareness of psycho-geographical effects’ (Situationist International, 2006, 62). The similarity with dérive is, however, that people attending the event encountered different activities, at fixed points in the terrain, where it was not expected. Each audience member remained aware that they were attending a performance. There was no attempt to encourage the viewer to suspend belief from their ordinary life, as in theatre, yet there was a deliberate ploy to push people ‘up the line’, a narrow path, one kilometre long. The intention was to encourage a sense of overcrowding, herd mentality and discomfort, as a form of representation of the trenches.
4. Background to the Curator
In my youth I worked for Lonsdale Advertising in central London, as an apprentice of a gentleman named Sid Bishop, an ex-WWII[iii] Spitfire engineer. Sid would recount many tales, and share stories and anecdotes with other senior employees who had been involved in the war. This breadth of experience was behind the success of the agency’s award winning work for the Royal British Legion (RBL), the charity behind the poppy appeal. The aim of the appeal, at that time, was to help ex-service personnel and their families who had fallen on hard times. The campaigns were very successful with clever ways of engaging the public without trying to induce pity or conversation regarding the morality of war. In districts still suffering scars from both WWI and WWII, including Peckham, South London, where I lived and grew up, the advertising worked; people wore their poppy with pride[iv].Many years later, I owned a café in New Cross, opposite Goldsmiths College, that had received a direct hit from a German V2, in 1944, killing 162 people.
Every year I would hold a small event on remembrance to mark this loss of life. My own understanding of both wars was heavily influenced by the stories that I had heard over my lifetime. I grew up in a culture where the effects of these wars remained, some thirty years after the last shots were fired; poverty, dereliction, disabilities and mental scars were still prominent in everyday life. As London developed and the make up of areas changed, so the collective, as well as physical, memory of the war began to fade.
4.1 The Royal British Legion
In 2009 the RBL created an advertising campaign that, for me, ran against their ethos. By showing posters of worryed British military families, who, it can be fair to assume based on the images, had partners serving in Afghanistan or Iraq, and were anxiously awaiting their return, the RBL effectively created an association with an ongoing war. In my view, this strategic marketing error created a direct relationship between war and the poppy, a signifier of support for ex-servicemen, and ran contrary to the original symbolism of their emblem.
The present war in Afghanistan is a divisive subject in some parts of the UK. One Internet page captures the view of many blogs and articles regarding how the poppy appears to be supporting the war, ‘I refuse to buy a poppy for Remembrance Day […] Sentimental rituals such as poppy-wearing only help with the collective amnesia’ (Pulsemedia.org) [vi].
As a motif, the RBL have probably been faced with a double-edged sword with regards to the poppy. As cities have regenerated over the last two decades, and physical memories of war are cleared, the collective memory of the war days decline. The poppy, arguably the nation’s strongest link to past wars, is maybe seen as an irrelevance to the modern viewer. Yet among older generations, the poppy continues to be seen as a support for veterans, many of whose lives were ruined by these wars; and this still remains critical to the poppy appeal today.
To clarify purpose of the Poppy, the following is taken directly from the RBL website outlining the history of the Poppy appeal:
Some of the bloodiest fighting of World War One took place in the Flanders and Picardy regions of Belgium and Northern France. The poppy was the only thing which grew in the aftermath of the complete devastation. McCrae, a doctor serving there with the Canadian Armed Forces, deeply inspired and moved by what he saw, wrote these verses:
In Flanders' Fields by John McCrae, 1915
In Flanders' fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn
Flanders' fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' Fields.
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, the First World War ended. Civilians wanted to remember the people who had given their lives for peace and freedom. An American War Secretary, Moina Michael, inspired by John McCrae's poem, began selling poppies to friends to raise money for the ex-Service community. And so the tradition began.RBL, Website, 2010 [vii]
4.1 Harry Patch
On the 25th July 2009, Harry Patch, the final surviving British person to have witnessed WWI, died aged 111. His was the last direct memory of this war and his passing meant that Britain, as a nation, had lost a vital source of memory. His death was keenly felt and the example he set in how he reflected on the war is one the poppy could benefit by; remembering of war and it’s suffering without commenting on the justifications of war itself.
What was important in the creation of the event was for it not to take an emotional position on war. Only one fact of war could be engaged with directly: cemeteries are the only guarantee of war. Keeping memory of war is an important factor in future generations avoiding conflict. It was essential that the event reached people in a way that did not challenge their view but encouraged them to re-examine why they hold that view and the purpose of remembrance events[viii].
The project was not solely about exploring people’s relationship with WWI. It was also exploring the way people relate to their local environment and the memory that inhabits their surrounds in the form of buildings and objects. Was it possible to attract new people to the rarely used cemetery[ix], during darkness? Of the few people who visit the cemetery there appeared to be a lack of awareness of the war memorials. And more fundamentally to this particular event, was it possible to absorb people in an emotive subject like war and death without signposting an opinion?
5. Storytelling
It can be argued that since the rise of mankind’s ability to write, storytelling has been on the decline. ‘The novel slowly killed the art of storytelling over the centuries’ states Walter Benjamin in his thought-provoking essay, The Storyteller (1968, 88). He describes how storytelling became information and how information is retained differently to a story. For Benjamin, ‘storytelling is always the art of repeating stories, and this art is lost when the stories are no longer retained’ (1968, 90). It was this loss of a continuous voice that the death of Harry Patch highlighted. A pacifist, and by all accounts a gentle man, Mr Patch did not begin to describe his war experiences until he reached 100, because ‘it weighed on him so heavily’, recounts historian and biographer Richard van Emden in a BBC4 commissioned documentary[x]. In the opening chapter of The Storyteller, Benjamin notes ‘Was it not noticeable at the end of the [First World] war that men returning from the battlefield had grown silent – not richer, but poorer in the communicable experience?’ (1990, 84). This reticence not to speak of the war appears to have been pervasive amongst many of the men returning from the trenches and is concurred by Marc Auge in non-place. ‘People of my age witnessed in their childhood and adolescence the tight-lipped nostalgia of men who fought in the 1914-18 war […] they had lived through some history […] we would never really understand what it meant (Auge, 1995, 26). The initial proposal to Lewisham Council picks up on this:
The passing of the last witnesses to WWI denies us a firsthand account of the horrors, privation and suffering endured by those who lived through it. Whole generations were lost on all sides of the conflict, and to avoid repeating such tragedy it is important that we continue to remember the pain and suffering that war inflicts. (Cemetery Proposal, Sept 2009)
This silence, a lack of commentary on warfare itself, was also intrinsic to the marketing of the poppy, up until very recently.
Listening to Harry Patch tell stories from that period had a major impact on many of the people who heard him. The powers of recollections were not only in the words that he spoke but the tone of the voice and gesture. The power of a firsthand account told from a place of human passion, it can be contended, supersede the power of the written word or image. This does not dismiss the power of image or word, only argues that tone and gesture, when delivered with passion, or personal account, will often embed within the memory with greater intensity. The listener then becomes the carrier of the story and, they in turn recount the story with their own personality adding further dimension.
Incorporating the story of WWI without making it information, or elaborating in a way that could have been seen as disrespectful to those who suffered from the war was paramount to the success of the event.
5.1 Spoken Word
The poetry performed was from 1916 onwards; this discarded much of the early jingoistic poetry that followed the start of the war. All the poems were written by people, from several nations, directly affected by the war and were read by poets from those nations. [xi]
The jingoism that was prevalent at the beginning of WWI needed to be addressed for the event to be seen as credible, and challenge any accusations of it being selective with history. A local filmmaker was commissioned to create a three-minute film loop. Using footage of troops from the participating nations, proudly marching to war, the film was projected onto a Yew tree. Images of ecstatic crowds, flags flying, ticker-tape, smiling soldiers and parades was juxtaposed with a live actor, standing underneath the projection quietly reading an extract from the diary of a soldier who had fought in the trenches.
Albert Blackmore, 88, a local man, offered the use of the WWI diary of his father, which he discovered after his death. Actor Harry Vendryes read from this diary while the audience watched the images on the screen. The power of the delivery moved some of the audience to tears as the words they were hearing contradicted what their eyes were seeing.
16 Thu. Lovely day. On fatigue bettering a sap trench. Got a letter away to Ted Willis, Alf Popham and Elsie Ledwith.In evening at stand to there was a heavy bombardment on the right. Fritz shelled us [supports] a good bit.
17 Fri. Very hot day. Filling in old gun posy in morning. Of course in supports we as well as those in front line have to stand to with fixed bayonets. Here we stand in supports about an hour as the day fades into darkness and an hour as the day dawns.
18 Sat. Lovely day again. In the morning we were digging some dirt out of sap leading from our half of the platoon to the other. Johnnie Orr is our rifle section corporal. Decent fellow. Two letters from home yesterday. One from Elsie and one from Edie Hazlewood and Elsie Ledwith. Posted two to mother and one to Elsie Ledwith. Relieved 1st Auckland in front line. Right of chalk pit.
19 Sun. Selected as mess orderly for platoon.
20 Mon. On bombing post very near to Fritz.. Corp Gill sniped through head yesterday morning and Ray Ambury buried him in a handy cemetery.Things pretty quiet although we are expecting Fritz to attack any time.
21 Tues. Very hot weather. Clear moonlight nights. Heard groans from Fritz hit by our rifle grenadier last night. Snipers busy on both sides until we bombed Fritz out with Stokes mortars. Hawkes Bay sent out fighting patrols to get prisoners.
22 Wed. Fritz was waiting for Hawkes Bay last night and an officer, a sergeant and a private failed to return. One prisoner was captured but the raid could not be considered uneventful.Had a very narrow escape with rifle grenade. Started a letter to Elsie.
23 th. The rifle grenade last night was coming strait for me but I happened to see it coming and dodged just in time for it landed just where I had been sitting.At 930, we put over a lot of Stokes shells. Fritz opened up with wiz-bangs.
Extract of Albert Huge Blackmore Diary, 1918[xiii]
Albert Blackmore paid moving tribute to Harry’s performance ‘hearing his father speak’[xiv].
And the more natural the process by which the storyteller forgoes psychological shading, the greater becomes the story’s claim to a place in the memory of the listener, the more completely it is integrated into his own experience, the greater will be his inclination to repeat it to someone else, someday, sooner or later
Benjamin, 1968, 90
‘Up the Line event was really quite wonderful’ (Tressillian James, BrockleyCentral Blog)
6. Gesture
Too often the recounting of an event becomes information if the power of the gesture is removed from the retelling and subsequently changes the nature of the story. By way of extension, the method by which a story is received by the audience also changes. Antonin Artaud believed that the audience are not interested in ‘whether there are profound clues to a show’s thoughts and actions’ (1970, 72). This event wanted to challenge such an assumption by the audience receiving minimal knowledge of what to expect, except for a simplistic programme[xv]. This was a direct attempt to address the issue of apathy that many need to develop in urban environments, as part of a sophisticated defence against the flood of information that is received constantly in everyday city life.
Man is a differentiating creature. His mind is stimulated by the difference between a momentary impression and the one which preceded it. Lasting impressions, impressions which differ only slightly from one another, impressions which take a regular and habitual course and show regular and habitual contrasts – all these use up, so to speak, less consciousness than does rapid crowding in changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions. These are the psychological conditions, which the metropolis creates.
Simmel, 2001, 133
These defences also exist when people view the arts, yet these psychological barricades are susceptible to being lacerated by a consummate performer, player or storyteller. French contemporary dance chorographer, Keren’Or Perez created a short movement piece that attempted to infiltrate the audience’s mind defences from the moment they entered the Brockley gate. Using nine dancers, the attendees were confronted with a sophisticated series of movements and expressions with only the sound of a distant piano as an accompaniment.
The actors and costumes form true, living, moving hieroglyphs. And these three-dimensional hieroglyphics are in turn embellished with a certain number of gestures, strange signs matching some dark prodigious reality we have repressed once and for all in the West
Artaud, 1970, 42
Hieroglyphics … this language conjures up intense images of mayoral or mental poetry in the mind and gives us a good idea of what spatial poetry, if free from spoken words, could become in theatre.
Artaud, 1970, 29
Perez was asked to explore whether the dancers could engage those entering the gate with an experiential performance that immediately overrode the conscious expectations of the audiences on entering a cemetery in darkness. Was it possible for movement of bodies to permeate, in a deeper cognitive way than pure speech or music, without first providing information? A difficult task as only rare forms of information are able to penetrate in the way that is being described, and this is often limited to acute information, as being informed of the death of someone close or the birth of a child. It was important to create an unexpectedness of impressions for the audience, a discontinuity and yet a harmonic event.
The intention is not to create an educational event or an exploration of people’s opinion of war; the intention is to lodge an experience in the mind that will trigger questions and memory. The purpose is to attract as many families and younger people as possible, to have an unusual experience in an unfamiliar environment that will bond in their psyche. We hope this programme will help break some of the taboos associated with cemeteries, such as the reluctance many people have to enter them for purely social reasons or to admire the wildlife and plants.
Cemetery Proposal, Sept 2009
7. The Cemetery Space
A key factor in gaining support from FoBLC and Lewisham council is their desire for the cemetery to become a more social space[xvi]. Funding cemeteries is expensive and public support is key to maintaining budgets[xvii].
‘Social space is a social product’ according to Henri Lefebvre, ‘space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action’ (1993, 26). It was envisaged that the event would act as a tool for encouraging people to re-evaluate the cemetery and reconsider its purpose as more than a non-place. ‘”Non-place” designates two complimentary but distinct realities: spaces formed in relation to certain ends (transport, transit, commerce, leisure), and the relations that individuals have with these spaces’ (Augé, 1992, 94).
Having the event in the evening was a deliberate ploy to encourage the audience to consider their relationship with the space. Creating an opportunity of experiencing the cemetery in virtual darkness was intended to use the space as a proxy for the audience to re-evaluate their understanding of remembrance, the symbolism of the cemetery and the symbolic loss of the poppy.
‘Brilliant after-dark event on Remembrance Day involving poetry readings, music, atmospheric lighting.’
(Nicholas Taylor, Open Space Officer, Lewisham Council, Crofton Park Assembly Meeting Notes, 30th Jan 2010)[xviii]
7.1 Monuments
The cemetery has several monuments to the dead of WWI and one monument to those who lost their lives in Deptford during London’s first blitz[xix]. Few local people appeared to notice that the cemetery had WWI monuments, which created the question of whether the narrative of these monuments resonates with the modern viewer. ‘Memory is blind to all but the group it binds’? (Nora, 2004, 236) Each monument has, engraved deep into the stone, a list of names, each an individual life, regiment, age. The knowledge beyond this is scarce, even for local historians.[xx] With few people able to remember the individuals engraved, a direct association is lost, and with it the memory of the person.
French historian, Pierre Nora believes ‘the less memory is experienced on the inside the more it exists only through its exterior scaffolding and outward signs’. Memorials are a form of this exterior scaffold, appearing less able to communicate with modern publics. It was to have people reengage with these monuments that an ‘atmosphere of media’[xxi] was required. Having performers placed on the monuments was intended to re-establish a relationship with the viewer and an attempt to embed the image of the monument within the memory. As Nora states, ‘The observance of the commemorative minute of silence, an extreme example of a strictly symbolic action, serves as a concentrated appeal to memory by literally breaking a temporal continuity’ (Nora, 2004, 237). It can be claimed that the two minutes silence is the last of the commemorative rituals that still engages on a transcendental plain.
‘Just a quick line to say how much I enjoyed last night, a memorable evening, this was the comment I heard many times’
(Richard Merry, ex-army captain, by email)
8. Memory
‘Memory creates a chain of tradition which passes a happening on from generation to generation’ (Artuad, 1990, 97). A memory of an event that takes the viewer outside his own realm may sometime be passed on to future generations, not as information, but as a story.
In the days, months, years that follow, it would be hoped the audience may occasionally remember the evening of poetry, classical music, dance and a beautiful local cemetery and by association, WWI, its impact and the loss it caused.
Proposal, Aug 2009
The event feedback was exceptionally positive with many people expressing how the evening made them reconsider the way they look at war. A key element of the event was whether further discussions would follow at kitchen tables, in classrooms and among friends. Quantifying this element is difficult though on two separate occasions fathers expressed how their children have been discussing the impact of war since the event[xxii].
Well done, it was wonderful, really moving and all the performers were great. Our 5 year old son enjoyed it too and really seemed to get the message. Which is great as he seems to think fighting and weapons are really great. I really think something sank in about the reality of war. He loved all the poetry, especially the woman near the church who was animated and communicative but still got a serious message across, and the violinist in the church. And the lantern making, which again isn't something he wouldnormally do.
Sarah, Igor and Vitaly (by email)[xxiii]
9. Conclusion
For many, entering a cemetery at night to experience performance about death and destruction would seem abstract. Despite this, hundreds attended and dozens became involved in making the event happen. In writing this report, I began to understand how much of my personal history was connected to the event, and this makes me wonder how much personal history played in all those who helped, performed and attended.
People were powerfully connected with the event, and as the numerous tributes testify, many people were deeply moved. The event achieved its aim of having many people question how they view war, memorials, cemeteries and remembrance. It showed that people of all ages and backgrounds have an interest in history and its impact on society today. In addition, many people experienced art forms that were new to them, while the performers agreed unanimously that this was one of the best events they had partaken in.The power of storytelling and gesture does appear to reach people on a deeper level. Destroying preconceived ideas of space, for spectator and performer alike, creates a new dialect that has to be overcome before the performance and audience relationship can continue. Keeping the event short, curtailed the time people had to react while moving around the cemetery. Fully understanding what was actually taking place was difficult and meant that the viewer needed to engage actively rather than passively. This was the key to the success of the evening. For a brief moment, people’s defences were lacerated, their personal filters to comprehend what was taking place around them struggled, and this hopefully created a glimpse of the space outside their normal experientiality.
10. Future
The plan for 2010 is to create this event in three locations of suitability with the intention of exploring new ways for younger generations to understand the impact WWI had, and still has, on the way we live and the politics of the world around us leading up to the centenary in 2014.2010 events will be very close to the 2009 event in terms of the type of performance with the artists having more time to rehearse and better backstage infrastructure and training provided. There will also be an active attempt to make the event environmentally cleaner in line with what would be expected of an event in a nature haven. 2011 will see the event developing its artistic programme to the full potential.
11. Acknowledgements
Many people and organisations need to be thanked for their contribution to making this project a reality. Isabel White who originally encouraged me to attempt the event and question aspects of my original proposal. The warm reception from Friends of Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, with special thanks to Mike Guilfoyle, Patrick Napier, Robert Clark, Geoffrey Thurley, Roland and posthumously to David Platt. Everyone at Lewisham Council who supported the event including, the entire cemetery and grievance departments, especially, Colin Burgess, Derek Johnson, Sarah Feraud, Shirley Bishop, Lewisham Safer Neighbourhood Team, The Metropolitan Police, Nick Barron at Brockley Central Blog Spot, Bill and his team at the Rivoli Ballroom, Oscars Cafe and the South London Press. Thanks to all the artists, technicians and volunteers with special mention to Tom White, Isabel White (again), Helen Schoene, Keren’Or Perez, Mr Ed, Elizebtta Fumagalli, Rebecca Glover, Colin and Blioux Glover, Andy Blue, Laura-Jane, Iona Bell, Patrick Codd, John Newcombe, Declan McGill, Jonathan Lockwood, Kai Clear, David Bottomley, Jazz Man John, Shane Carey, Don and Jen Fletcher, Kirsty Cole, Debra Walter, Mike Keogh, Dick Merry, Claire from Brockley Society, Moira, Cath and Gill from Brockley Max, Mr Lawrence and of course the ever willing, the amazing Julian Jacobson. And to the many more who I am sorry to have missed by name but a very warm thank you. And last but not least Goldsmiths MAs who braved the cold and rain for people and an area they did not even know, Kuan-Ting (Leonie), Yun-Chu (Bamboo) Chen, Ko-Chieh Hsu, Yoon-Kyung Lee, Eunji Son, Elisa Testori, Csilla Novoszath, and especially Xing Zhi (Amadeus) Fu for working so hard all day.
12. Images
Image 1, P2Yuka, Music in the chapel, Copyright Robert ClarkImage 2, P7War Dancers (''Up The Line'' enactment), Copyright Robert ClarkImage 3, P8Poppy, Copyright RBLImage 4, P9For Their Sake, Wear A Poppy, Poster Campaign, RBL, Copyright Ads of the World [onine]Image 5, P11Harry Patch, Photo from MailonlineImage 6, P14Your Country Needs You, Copyright John LockwoodImage 7, P15Dancers Ponder, Copyright Kirsty ColeImage 8, P17Celtic Cross, Copyright Elisa TestoriImage 9, P19Ladywell Memorial, Copyright Elisa TestoriImage10. P20Julian Jacobson, Evermore Memorial, Copyright Kirsty ColeImage 11, P22Rivoli Ballroom, Copyright John Lockwood
13. Bibliography
Artaud, Atonin. (1970) The Theatre and its Double, London, Calder Publications (UK) Limited Adorno, T.H; Horkheimer, M. (1997) Dialectic of Enlightenment, London, Verso, New Left Books
Auge Marc, (2000) non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, Translation, John Howe, London, Verso
Benjamin, Walter. (1990/1955) Illuminations, Ed. Hannah Arendt, Translated by Harry Zorn, London, Pimlico
Landry, Charles (2000), The Creative City, pp132-139, London, Comedia
Lefebvre, Henri, (1994) The Production of Space, 2nd ed, translation by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers
Lloyd, Richard, (2006) Neo-Bohemia, Art and Commerce in the Post Industrial City, New York, Routledge Nora, Pierre, Between memory and History (Les Lieux de Memoire), in The Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture Reader,(2004), Ed V.r. Schwartz and J.M. Przyblyski, London/New York, Routledge
Simmel, Georg, The Metropolis and Mental Life, translation in Kurt H Wolff (ed.), The Sociology of George Simmel, Glencoe, 1950, found in Art In theory 1900 + 1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, (2001) Charles Harrison and Paul Woods, pp130-135, Blackwall
Situationist International, (2006) Situationist International Anthology, revised and expanded edition, edited and translated by Ken Knabb, Berkeley, Bureau of Public Secrets
References
[i] Formerly Moonbow Events[ii] WWI – World War One, 1914-1918[iii] WWII – World War Two 1939 - 1945[iv] ‘Wear Your Poppy With Pride’ was a successful strap-line of the RBL campaign for man years; it has been impossible to find any advertising for the RBL except the most recent campaign. Reasons for this are unknown.[v] Source: Ads of the World, [online] Available from {http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/royal_british_legion_poppy_appeal_2009_3}[Accessed 25.4.10][vi] Extract [online] Available from: {http://pulsemedia.org/2009/11/05/i-refuse-to-buy-a-poppy/} [Accessed 1.5.10][vii] Source: http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/about-us/history-of-the-poppy-appeal[viii] The full initial proposal for the event can be supplied on request[ix] FoBLC and LB Lewisham are both looking for ways to encourage people to visit the cemetery.[x] Van Emden, Richard. (2008), Harry Patch, producer and director, Jenny Walmsley and Rob Wicks, BBC English Regions[xi] Poem were selected from several countries and read in the mother tongue. Countries represented were England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, German, Hungary, Canada, Australia, France and Russia.[xii] See Brockley Central Comments See brockleycentral.blogspot.com[xiii] Diary supplied by Albert Blackmore, son of Albert Huge Blackmore, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, Regimental number 54814, Wellington West Coast Regiment. 1918[xiv] In the Rivoli Ballroom following the event the Harry and Albert met for the first time and had an intense, personal and emotional conversation concerning the event.[xv] With thanks to Helen Schoene See Event Programme, see 14.2, p21-22[xvi] Colin Burgess, Cemeteries Manager, London Borough of Lewisham[xvii] Source: Patrick Napier, FoBLC[xviii] Source: LB Lewisham website {www.lewisham.gov.uk/NR/.../CroftonParkAssembly30January2010.pdf}[xix] Many people around the docks of East London died during these raids during the first half of the war.[xx] Richard Merry, Ex-Captain in SAS made the observation that the records had all been lost by Lewisham hospital in the 1980s. The hospital was London’s intensive care unit for seriously injured troops and explains why most of those buried in the cemetery were from across the world. 5th Nov 09.[xxi] Prof. Scott Lash, Lecture Season 2009. Lash, 28.11.2009, Media Theory, Writing loses the ability to communicate requiring a new atmosphere of media. [xxii] Barrister Nairn Purss sent a video of the piano being played with the voice of his son asking questions on why they were at the event. The following day, his son, Jengo, announced he was against war. Video of Jengo during the piano piece is available on request. A similar story also came from professional musician, Fran Turner, who said his children were continuing to discuss the evening and what was WWI at breakfast the weekend after the event. [xxiii] Email Sent: Sat 14/11/2009 11:54,
Image: Robert Clark
Image of a Poppy; a traditional British Remembrance symbol
Image: Poppy Appeal Poster, 2009 [v]
Image: Image of film projected onto Yew Tree