Poppy Road

Courtesy of Poppy Road Project Facebook Page

If you go down to Station Road, Aldridge from 1st November, you're in for a big surprise......

Something truly remarkable is coming together. The culmination of over a years work for a few community minded and spirited people who live in and love Aldridge, along with donations of time, ideas and all sorts of craft work from the people of Aldridge  and also the wider community.

Poppy Road.

Poppy Road is a tribute from one generation to another. Silhouettes, displays and thousands of poppies honour local people who endured the Great War of 1914-18.

Born out of  the work of  The Great War Project which sounds like an enormous organisation but is in effect the work of three wonderful individuals, Sue Satterthwaite, Len Boulton and Karen Ross MBE (plus their long suffering and very understanding and supportive spouses) and in conjunction with Aldridge Local History Society, Poppy Road is to commemorate and honour not just the brave men and women from Aldridge, who served during WW1 but also the village as a whole, where everyone living in Aldridge at the time, made a sacrifice or suffered from the events during 1914-1918.

Since the beginning of the year many people in Aldridge, Walsall and further afield in the UK plus also incredibly Australia, have been busy making poppies. Knitted, fabric, plastic, fashioning them into wonderful creative memorials and wreaths, so that we as a community can give thanks to those from Aldridge who served, those who suffered, those who lived through the Great War, in what was then still a small village.

Courtesy of Poppy Road Project Facebook Page

Over 70 houses in the road will have displays and The Red Lion, The Air Cadets and Old Railway House Nursery are part of Poppy Road too. Network Rail have allowed their railings to be used and Amey, the lamp posts.

Why Station Road?

Station Road represents the village as a whole. The road during WW1 was a hub for troop movement, the last place in Aldridge men and women saw as they left the village to serve, boarding the trains as their families and friends waved them off to an uncertain future. The sick and injured who were to be nursed at the two military hospitals in the village arrived in the road and families and friends of those who had gone, waited there when they returned. The road is symbolic for the whole village and not just for those who lived or worked on it. It would even now, be familiar to those who knew Station Road in 1914, many houses that were standing then, still exist and The Red Lion is of course still there, although alas the Station itself is long gone.

The aim as you walk along the road is to take a journey getting to know some of the people involved. This is better explained by the words that will be displayed.

"As you walk down Station Road you will see sixteen wooden silhouettes, each representing a former resident who lost his life in the Great War. A further forty-one silhouette posters in windows remember those who served and survived. Leaflets telling their individual stories are available from ‘The Red Lion’ and Aldridge Library or via our Facebook page: Poppyroadproject2018"

Outside the air cadets building there will be a Field of Remembrance. The Board says:

Courtesy of Poppy Road Project Facebook Page

"Each poppy on the Field of Remembrance represents one of the 433 Aldridge people known to have who served in the Great War. 101 of these lovely poppies are painted black to represent those our village lost, forty-one of whom are not recorded on our war memorial. Our ‘station scene’ is a reminder that many of them left from here to go to war whilst two screens of poppies remember those who did vital war work."

Poppy Road will be an incredible sight. If you would like to help put everything together be at The Air Cadets building on Station Road on Monday 29th October at 10 am.

Personally I would like to say thank you to Sue, Len and Karen for their hard work and perseverance on The Poppy Road Project. Aldridge is very lucky to have three such hard working, community minded individuals in its midst. Thank you for the idea of Poppy Road and its evolution into what will be a moving and fitting commemoration for the 100th anniversary of the Armistice.

Photograph belonging to my Great Grandmother of the Consecration of the war memorial in Aldridge in 1919