Alrewas Pavers

Hello All
I thought it might be useful to have a small hole in the top right hand corner of the Pavers at Alrewas to allow the placing of a poppy. I am just putting this idea forward to see what you may think I have run it past Geoff and he was in agreement. I would just like your thoughts.
Regards
Ron

Good idea but will this apply to new pavers only ? Otherwise, holes will need to be drilled in the existing ones.

The idea is to drill the existing paver, which I am more than happy to do should any one require it done, but maybe also as you suggest this is something which could be applied to new Pavers before they are laid

I noticed some of them are fading very fast ,,,,

I am scoping the idea of a memorial that will sit behind the Army Commando Memorial that will list all of the Army Commandos that were killed during the war (possibly a low level marble wall approx 8ft wide, 2ft high, 2ft deep). If this is put in place then the pavers that are there will stay, however future pavers will only be for those post-war Commandos who die/have died. I will then have the existing pavers professionally laid, however need to raise funds to do this.

The current pavers are not fading, it is the build up of dirt/dust. Please feel free to do a bit of cleaning if you happen to be passing by.

Regards

Geoff

Geoff,

Wonderful idea to put a memorial for all Army Commandos KIA in WW2 at the Arewas site.

Many of the WW2 Commandos I knew wanted something like this at Spean Bridge Memorial.

Thanks for all your work for us.

Bill

I think the idea of a memorial for those that died during the WWII is a great idea.
My only thought is that polished marble can be a bit of a bugger to photograph, the surface is like a mirror and picks up all reflections - I can see folk taking photos of the memorial only to see a reflection of themselves taking the photo on the finished print.

Perhaps slate or granite would be an alternative option?

With regards Ron's idea, rather than drill the pavers maybe a piece of slate/granite could be laid at the base of the memorial to hold poppies and crosses?
It could be drilled with holes (much like a cribbage board) to insert the poppies into.

Alternatively, when the pavers are being relaid instead of being butt joined, they could have pointed mortar joints - the mortar, rather than the pavers, could then have holes drilled to hold poppies.

Nick

geoffmurray1 wrote:
The current pavers are not fading, it is the build up of dirt/dust. Please feel free to do a bit of cleaning if you happen to be passing by.

Returning from holiday today I did a quick detour to Alrewas so that I could fulfill my promise to Pete Cooper, Lindsay Miller and Pete Roger to photograph their respective father's paviors.

I armed myself with a hand brush and gave all the stones a good going over but I was a little pressed for time and some of the older ones need more work...
Bear in mind however, that our memorial is only a couple of hundred yards from a very large gravel sifting plant and the dust/sand blows over with the prevailing wind.

I took the opportunity to photograph all the paviors that have been laid thus far and will be uploading them to the gallery in the near future.
The photos are of 'blocks' of paviors but I can crop down to individual paviors, so if any one wants a photo please let me know and I'll send a copy - gratis, naturally.

Nick

Thanks for this Nic , I hope you didn't have to cut your holiday short, it turns out we will not be able to stop at Alweras on the way to Ft.William,so your time and efforts are much appreciated.
I will pm you with an email address where you can send the pictures.

I look forward to meeting you all in Ft.William .

Cheers

Lindsay

Lindsay,

Always a pleasure to visit Alrewas so thanks for giving me the excuse for going...

I met a lovely couple there on their first visit. They'd travelled down from Preston to visit the RM Memorial - Lorraine's dad was in the RM but she didn't know which...

I managed to establish that it was either 42 RM Cdo or 44 RM Cdo and I'm sure we'll hear from them soon.

They too were overwhelmed by the National Memorial Arboretum and will be making more frequent visits...

Nick

Nick - great job with the photos of the pavers. Thank you.

Janet

Hi Janet,

I picked out most of the weeds in between the paviers but it wasn't until I uploaded the photos that I noticed the huge clump of grass by Bob's...

Just as well we've already got one - without weeds!

See you soon,
Nick

good on ya Nick ..free pint for you at FW

That's okay Nick - we will pretend they are flowers, he'll be happy.

Janet