A mobility scooter decorated with hundreds of hand-made poppies was among the entries that took part in Monday’s Burnham-On-Sea Carnival.
Lorita Gainford decided to create the entry, which she called ‘Respect’, by decorating her mobility scooter with the hand-crocheted poppies as a mark of remembrance.
She told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “Last year Cambridge University Students Union initially decided not to have a remembrance day as they felt it ‘glorified war’. This made me so cross – they’d lost sight of what remembrance day is about.”
“So I chose to make 400 hand-crocheted poppies and decorate my mobility scooter as a visual demonstration of my respect.”
“My best friend Jessie Maddox said that if I made 1000 then she would wear them too on the parade. I realised that 1000 poppies was a small price to pay for those who died, were injured or who are still fighting for my safety and freedom of choice.”
“It costs us nothing to take a little time out of lives each year to chose to reflect, remember and respect those that paid the price for our freedom.”
She added: “The poppies all have brooch backs so that they can be sold in aid of the Poppy Appeal. I wanted the poppies to count for something after the carnival because each of those lives should continue to count for something.”
