Art students create poignant poppy field as Bishop Auckland College remembers

Art students have created a poignant field of poppies as Bishop Auckland College pays tribute to the fallen on the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI.

More than 70 students from the art and photography department worked for several weeks producing the poppies from recycled bottles, which were chopped and trimmed into poppy shapes and painted.

They worked with local artist and former student Dan Walls, who specialises in graffiti mural art and helped produce the image of the soldier on the door which features in the poppy field display at the entrance to the college’s main campus in Woodhouse Lane.

The students also created a display of military memorabilia and artwork inside the college, which included tributes to local soldiers who lost their lives during WWI.

Talented trumpeter Harry Rose, 11, a pupil at neighbouring St John’s Catholic School, played reveille as staff and students joined former and current service personnel in a minute’s silence during a veterans’ coffee morning.

Vintage vocalist Yvonne Slater entertained the Army, Navy and RAF veterans and their families, who enjoyed refreshments and food prepared and served by catering and hospitality students, supported by the college’s uniformed services department and Year 11 students from Hummersknott Academy in Darlington.

They were joined by members of 8th Battalion The Rifles and The Royal Signals, Darlington, which will house the poppies following the display outside the college.

The coffee morning, along with a raffle and money donated in poppy tins, raised £280 for the Royal British Legion.