A CASCADE of 1,500 locally hand knitted and crocheted poppies has been put on display in St Peter's Church, Rawdon.

The poppies were knitted and made by a wide range of people in the church and community, children as well as adults. While most of the poppies are traditional red to remember the war dead, they are dotted with dotted with a few white poppies to reflect our aspirations for peace, and some purple poppies to remember animals killed in war and conflict

On the November 4, a team of local volunteers threaded them into a large camouflage net suspended from a point high above the pulpit cascading down to the floor and enveloping the pulpit and communion rail at the front of St Peter's Church.

There are other poppy displays around the church including 99 poppies above the war memorial stones, one for every fatality from Rawdon. There are 76 names listed on stones but the church is aware some are missing and believe there were 99 in total from Rawdon.

The display had its official launch on All Saints Day November 5 at St Peter’s 10am service which was also a service of memories where the community also brought photos of loved ones and placed them around the sanctuary and lit candles around the Holy Table to remember them.

This began a week of remembrance in which the church will be open daily between 10am and 4pm for people to visit and see the cascade.

The weekend culminates on Remembrance Sunday at 10am with a special service, with the poppy cascade at its focus, including the keeping of silence and laying of wreaths at 11am. This service will also be interpreted to British Sign Language.

The poppy cascade started as the brainchild of Di Oldham, a member of St Peter’s Church, and was then supported by the church council and vicar. They distributed patterns for making the poppies and put them for download on the church website and let the community know the plans and it all happened

The Rev Mark Smith Vicar of Rawdon said: “At that time we only expected a few hundred poppies, but when we reached 800 and they were still coming we renamed it the Cascade of a Thousand Poppies. Amazingly, the present cascade display has more than 1,500. We gave up counting after that!”

Reaction from local residents who who have seen the cascade include “stunning”, “beautiful”, “that is totally awesome” and “it looks amazing”.