Poppies symbol of sacrifice

Retired schoolteacher Ellen-Mary Shine has knitted 120 poppies so far as part of her personal quest to commemorate her family’s links to World War I.

She and her former warrant officer husband David are heading to Albany from their Safety Bay home for the first convoy centenary and will take some of the locally-produced poppies to Gallipoli for the 2015 centenary of the Anzac landing.

Last Friday, Mrs Shine joined 20 other women at Anzac House in Perth to contribute to more than 10,000 poppies that have been sewn, crocheted and knitted in recent months for the centenary.

Her interest in making poppies was triggered by reading her great aunt Isabel Williams’ anguished telegrams to the Australian Army in 1916, after she learnt her brothers David and William Sheppard had been injured at the Battle of Pozieres.

“Even from her telegram you could hear her frantic concern,” Mrs Shine said. “It brought home to me what people living at home went through during the war.”

Fortunately, the brothers returned safely to WA.

Mrs Shine’s family has a proud service record, with her husband serving 22 years in the Royal Australian Navy, her daughter Kerry serving eight years in the same service and her father serving in the US Navy as a submariner.

In Albany, 12,000 knitted and crocheted poppies are being displayed on headstones in Albany Entertainment Centre. They will supplement the 30,000 plastic poppies being placed on Middleton Beach.

In addition, there will be thousands of poppies on display in the Stirling Terrace Mess Hall and the RSL. After the poppies have been displayed in Albany they will be taken to Melbourne for display in Federation Square.

This is now a national project where the target is 102,784 poppies, representing one poppy for every Australian serviceman or woman who has died in service.

After Melbourne, all the poppies will be sent back to WA for Remembrance Day 2015.