Shrouds of the Somme

[Pamela21]

If someone in your family was a casualty of the Battle of the Somme (1st July 2016) then you really need to see this website. Every single casualty has been wrapped by hand in a shroud, all 19,240 of them. This is similar to the Tower of London Poppies. The figures, wrapped in their shrouds can be purchased. They go on display at Exeter on 1st July 2016 for a week.
http://www.thesomme19240.co.uk/

I hope this is useful to know if you have an ancestor of relative who was a casualty.

[Mancpal]

I understand that commemoration is very much a personal matter. I wonder how much of the funds raised will go to worthy causes and how much will go to the 'artist' behind the scheme.  I've been aware of this project for some time and still think it has an element of Somme bandwagon about it. As I've mentioned, this matter is for each person to decide on its merits or lack of, personally I could wrap an action man in cloth if I chose to but I can think of better ways to remember those who took part (4 in my family). My intention is not to upset,  merely to point out that commercialism should not be a part of commemoration. As usual, I stand to be corrected.

Simon

[Guy Etchells]

I am sorry but to me this is a crass commercial money making gimmick that is an insult to those who gave their lives at the Somme.

The website states
“The purpose of this work is to physicalise the number – to illustrate the enormity of the horror which unfolded and the loss of life. It is easy to say the number but almost impossible now, almost 100 years on, to imagine the physical reality of the bodies and the impact that these deaths had on the friends and  families of these individual soldiers or collectively, upon society as a whole.”

What it does not state is that the bodies of a large number of those who fell at the Somme were never recovered; they did not have the dignity of being wrapped in a shroud and buried.
To use their deaths to make money, no matter what that money is used for is totally immoral.
They had no dignity at the end of their lives, they had no dignity in their death, please allow them the dignity to rest in peace.

Guy

[Mancpal]

Guy,

Having re-read my post I feel I've been over polite about this installation. Your post fits my feelings far better than my own.

Simon

[3sillydogs]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Guy on this one..

Transcribing Death Notices for the time period 1916-18 many of them are for men who died "somewhere in France" often the place or the exact date is not known, and this is just for one province of my country, on many of them I have seem the same notation for 3 or 4 members of the same family.  Let them rest in peace wherever they fell...

[joboy]

That war took such a chunk out of young men in many countries .......... young virile men and what a sad waste it was.
Who profited from this? ............. it certainly was not the young men and their families.
I think it is quite disgusting that profiteering is allowed over such a sad and solemn time.
Joe

[newburychap]

Transcribing Death Notices for the time period 1916-18 many of them are for men who died "somewhere in France" often the place or the exact date is not known, and this is just for one province of my country, on many of them I have seem the same notation for 3 or 4 members of the same family.  Let them rest in peace wherever they fell...

'Somewhere in France' was all the relatives were told for security reasons - the papers would not have been allowed to print anything much more accurate. The deaths of most of those killed in action can be traced to within a couple of hundred yards today - back then there were plenty who whould have known where most men fell.

[joboy]

Pamela21....... please do not be upset about the 'hard nosed' attitude of some of rootschatters here (self included) because of the topic you raised.
We all know that it was very well intended and you weren't to know the response you would receive.
The circumstance has risen before and some of us can sense a money making scheme a mile off.
Do come back and participate ....... we do understand. 

[3sillydogs]

It may have been done then for security reasons, but I wonder how many folk actually know the places where their loved ones actually found their final resting places....