A woman from Buckinghamshire said it has become 'very meaningful' for her to annually deck her town with handmade poppies in memory of those who lost their lives in war.
As Remembrance Sunday approaches, communities around the UK are reflecting on the thousands of lives that were lost during the First and Second World Wars and remembering those of their own who never returned from the battlefields.
Corrine Hinch, 58, from Marlow, is kept busier than most over this early autumn period, however, as each November she becomes the benefactor of 300 felt poppies, to each of which is attached the name of a person who lived in the Buckinghamshire town before sacrificing their life in the conflict..
The idea of dispersing the poppies along her local High Street, where others can find them and be reminded of a name that could otherwise have been forgotten, came to her after a visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp made her realise "how much I had to thank these soldiers for".
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Although Corrine began her poppy dispersal operation in 2019, it gained new ground under the shadow of lockdown in 2020, when a social media call-out prompted residents all around Marlow to lend a hand, resulting in a resplendent display of over 1,000 poppies around the town.
Three years on, the 58-year-old estimates that the number of poppies strung up around Marlow this November is "well over 5,000", with the poppy knitting and crocheting groups morphing into an ever-expanding community of good Samaritans, freely giving their time for a worthy cause.
The 300 poppies which are annually distributed along the High Street are still singlehandedly crafted and placed by Corrine herself, however, and they continue to be the element of the new tradition that holds the most importance for her.
"I started doing this because I wanted the people from Marlow who died in the war to be specially remembered. Back in 2019, someone found a poppy with their great-grandfather's name on it, who they hadn't known had fought and died in the war.
"The grandfather had been very young and his wife had remarried, and so the link was lost. But after they made this discovery, this person travelled to France to visit his great-grandfather's grave and left my poppy there.
"It was lovely and a very meaningful thing to have played a part in."
Corrine will distribute her final batch of poppies, 30 a day for 10 days, on Wednesday, November 8, ahead of Remembrance Sunday, November 11. Head down to Marlow High Street this week to see if you can spot one!
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