The other day I was just walking to work as usually from Hammersmith to High Street Kensington. Just outside the station I saw something that I considered oportunity for pic, which was too good to miss. Especialy listening to the Pink Floyd song On the turning away.



for those who are not sure about the name and the inspiration, read here:
ON THE TURNING AWAY Lyrics - PINK FLOYD

BR
Peter

I find that quite a sad but effective image Peter.
One day of remembrance and then they are forgotten for another year.

[pschlute]

Brilliant, thought provoking image. Well done.

[JMR]

Not familar with the lyrics, but the image is powerful. Will look at the link when I have time.

JMR

[devisor]

like this, it raw and strong.

[Mechan1k]

One of the better more moving songs from Pink Floyd.
I gotta dig them albums out again ... Momentary Lapse of Reason Album is one of my favourites.

[Syb]

But what is it? This red thing?

[Mechan1k]

I know in Australia the Red Poppy flower is used for times of Rememberance of past war heroes/returned servicemen (WWI mainly though) ... i am presuming this is what this image is all about.

I am not sure if this is the same in other countries.

[Mechan1k]

OK ... here's an exerpt from the Australian Defence Website on the Red Poppy:

Why a red poppy?

Colonel John McCrae, who was Professor of Medicine at McGill University in Canada before WW1 (joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto), first described the red poppy, the Flanders' poppy, as the flower of remembrance.

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the Boer War as a gunner, but went to France in WW1 as a medical officer with the first Canadian contingent.

It was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and MAJ John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime. As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, MAJ McCrae, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. MAJ McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days .... Seventeen days of Hades!
At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done "(1).

One death particularly affected MAJ McCrae. A young friend and former student, LT Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May. LT Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. At the second battle of Ypres in 1915, when in charge of a small first-aid post, he wrote in pencil on a page from his despatch book a poem that has come to be known as "Flanders' Field" which described the poppies that marked the graves of soldiers killed fighting for their country. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry. In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook


Sorry for the long read ... but I think it explains it well.

[Venturi]

Nice shot Peter. And thanks for putting that song in my head; a welcome change from the electronic Mozart tunes from my boy's toys.

p.s. - you typo'd turnign on the digital mat.

[daacon]

Nice shot Peter - very poignant. Awsome song and band as well.

[Peter Zack]

It's a great shot and glad you noticed it. Sure makes you think. I always go the the services here. My grandfather fought in WW1 as a Black Watch (lied about his age) and then again in WW2 as a chaplin (but they carried weapons back then as well). Somehow he survived both.

Sad to see the old service people at these services and somehow that image fits how we remember and so quickly forget as well.

Awesome song as well from my favourite group.

I think it's worth posting the poem:

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The poem was written in May 3 1915
The actual field is near the border of France and Belgium
He died in 1918 near the end of the war while still serving.

[Jimbo]

Very sad but true picture how we forget, at times, our fine men and women of our military around the world. Thank you for sharing as it makes you think! JIMBO

[Leaf Fan]

After observing a moment of silence I hopped onto PPG and saw this photo come up for voting, quite appropriate.

Gave it the thumbs up, by the way.....

[axl]

After observing a moment of silence I hopped onto PPG and saw this photo come up for voting, quite appropriate.

Gave it the thumbs up, by the way.....

THANX

and big thank you to all of you who looked and/or commented on this shot. I needed something like this, because lately due to bad weather and busy times at work (I know it should be recession here but in my shop it doesn't look like one) I really couldn't get many (if any) decent shots. So this raised my spirits a bit again...
thanx guys