Page 90 - RADC 2016

MILITARY MATTERS
Col Anderson and Paul Armstrong start work
The Coming World Remember Me (CWXRM) project is a Belgian project to commemorate the 600,000 people who died on Belgian soil in World War One. The X in the middle of the abbreviation is the symbol for the provincial administration of West Flanders. The project workshop in Ypres is located underneath the Rampart memorials to the south of the Menin Gate in the same premises as the printing presses for the Wipers Times*. There are also many other global workshops to serve this project. It costs just €5 to take part. And Representative Colonel Commandant Colonel Quentin Anderson, former
Colonel Commandant Paul Mannering, Regimental Secretary Major John Sharp
Major Sharp and his gure
The COMING WORLD REMEMBER ME Project Paul Mannering
and former warrant of cer class one and RADC ambassador Mr Paul Armstrong all participated having attended the BFG Battle eld Tour to Ypres.
From 2014 to 2018 thousands of people spread over Flanders and the rest of the world will take part in the making of the installation by moulding 600,000 sculptures out of clay. Each and every sculpture represents one of the victims who lost
their lives in Belgium during the First World War. After being baked in the oven, all the sculptures will be identi ed by a dog tag,
the universal system of identi cation used for soldiers. On this dog tag will be the name of one of the victims mentioned on the ‘The Name List’ that is composed by
the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres. Each dog tag will also bear the name of
one of the makers. In this way different generations and nationalities will be united
in the commemoration. In the spring of 2018 the land art installation of the 600,000 gures will be on Hill 60 in No Mans Land. It will create a respectful artistic memory to the victims of the Great War.
Each sculpture is formed from a ball
of clay in either and adult or child sized standard mould. It depicts the form of a seated gure with knees drawn to chest and their arms wrapped around them, head bowed and an arched back. Once moulded the individual making the gure creates
the spine using ngers and thumbs thus giving a unique and individual result. Prior to installation each gure is given a dog tag and the creator is given the matching one
together with a memorial book. Eventually creators will be able to look up the individual for whom they have become a godparent.
If you’d like to know more
go to the website http://www. comingworldrememberme.be/en
*The Wipers Times was a trench magazine that was published by British soldiers ghting in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. In early 1916, the
12th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, was stationed in the front line at Ypres, Belgium, and came across a printing
press abandoned by a Belgian who had, in the words of the editor, “stood not on the order of his going, but gone.” A sergeant who had been a printer in
peacetime salvaged it
and printed a sample
page. The paper
itself was named
after Tommy slang
for Ypres itself.
Paul Armstrong and his sculpture
88 RADC BULLETIN 2016