Check Out The Giant Poppy On Guildford Cathedral Tower

Published on: 25 Oct, 2013
Updated on: 25 Oct, 2013

The Surrey branch of the Royal British Legion (RBL) helped launch this year’s Poppy Appeal by lighting up the tower of Guildford Cathedral on Friday evening with a giant red poppy.

Guildford Cathedral with the Poppy Appeal emblem projected on to the tower.

The event featured RBL standard bearers, the Army Cadet Force band, RBL Brolly Ladies who sported poppy-patterned umbrellas, and young people wearing poppy-themed T-shirts.

The Royal British Legion Riders do their ‘Rev of Remembrance’.

The Royal British Legion Riders, its membership branch for biking enthusiasts, roared on to the cathedral forecourt to perform a ‘Rev of Remembrance’.

The standards were dipped for a time of silence to remember those who have given their lives in times of conflict.

The Dean of Guildford Cathedral, the Very Rev’d Dianna Gwilliams, read the Exhortation and the Kohima Prayer.

This was followed by Mike Tuohy, the general manager of Royal British Legion Industries, based at Leatherhead, who played guitar and sang Australian folk singer Eric Bogle’s beautiful song The Green Fields Of France.

One of the RBL’s Brolly Ladies.

The cathedral will be lit up with the poppy projection on the evenings of Saturday, September 26, and then again on November 10 and 11.

Last year the Surrey branch of the RBL raised £1.2 million and it hopes to better that this year. So, give generously over the next couple of weeks.

A pictured sent in by Shirley West soon after the illumination was switched on shows there are in fact more poppies above the west door. However, these were not visible later in the evening (see previous photo) when the main cathedral outside lights were turned on.