By Ian Huddleston, Community organiser
Swinton Community Focus Group and Swinton Crafty Ladies have come together for a joint project to remember those fallen for Remembrance Day, with the idea of Painting Swinton red. #Swintonpoppy
The idea started last year after a resident suggested the group do something for the 206 local men fallen in WW1, which are commemorated at the Swinton war memorial at St Margaret’s church. The groups worked together to make poppies to go through Swinton and was a real success with lots of good feedback from residents and surrounding communities who travelled in just to see it.
This year, they wanted to expand on this and do something a bit bigger. The idea was to recognise all wars, and the fallen animals in wars, which would be commemorated with purple reefs, and some information on about this.
The group contacted Milton special needs school and invited some of their students to come to the centre and help make the poppies with them. This was a real achievement for the students there, as they have never worked on projects outside of school.
Rotherham college have also been involved with the group, with students painting canvasses which will be displayed in Swinton Library and the train station.
The poppies will be on display for 2 weeks from the first weekend in November, going from Woodman roundabout, right through the main street of Swinton to the border. St Johns church are also involved and will be doing a waterfall feature of poppies and Swinton train station will have posters on display.
