The unveiling on Remembrance Sunday 2019

All photography by Griffin Coe

The Centenary Memorial reflects the loss and tradition of 1918 and the values of inclusion and thinking of 2018.  

'I feel that your memorial sculpture successfully represents both loss and remembrance,

speaks for itself …....... There was a gasp of surprise when the sculpture was unveiled at the museum yesterday. I've been to a few previews and I have never experienced anything quite like that.

I hope that you would take it as a compliment.'

          Griffin Coe Art Historian

First World War Centenary Memorial - a view of the whole piece.

The piece depicts the First World War and you may notice that the soldier’s uniform and woman’s dress are of that period as are the rifles below. However, the ‘message’ applies to both wars. The white painted rifles represent the futility of war, and if you look closely, they have fingerprints and signs of use by their former bearers. Despite the notion of 'a war to end all wars,' the rifles are ready for future action, which of course, took place only 21 years later.

It was agreed early on, that we didn't want to replicate the traditional template of portraying only male sacrifice. This centenary memorial is firmly representative of 2018 inclusive thinking. You will notice the woman has been left entirely alone, utterly bereft, and without the future she had once taken for granted. She has only poetry to comfort her, and who knows where she found the strength to cope with her debilitating grief. The soldier is under nourished, numbed by his experiences and emptied of emotion by all he has seen. He stands at reverse arms, paying respect to his comrades whom you will find remembered in the register that rests on the lectern, between the two figures.  

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