As services were being held to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings the Lord Mayor of the City of London was in Newham to check on a poppy meadow planted by the borough‘s children.

Fiona Woolf, Lord Mayor of the City of London, toured West Ham Park in Forest Gate to view the City of London Corporation’s WW1 commemoratory poppy bed.

The Lord Mayor is head of the City of London Corporation, which owns and manages West Ham Park. It is taking part in The Centenary Poppy Campaign, a national initiative of the Royal British Legion, to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the start of the Great War. The poppy meadow was sown in October 2013 with the help of children from local primary schools.

Fiona Woolf said: “With these poppies we reflect on our great shared loss – and honour the memory of each young man, amongst the millions, who marched away never to return.”

This year, the City Corporation is growing poppies in several parks including West Ham Park, Golders Hill Park, Queen’s Park, and within the Square Mile itself.

Over 16 million people died and over 20 million were wounded in World War I, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history. The use of the poppy was inspired by the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’. Its opening lines refer to the thousands of poppies that were the first flowers to grow in the churned-up earth of the battle fields. The poppies flowering in summer 2014 will commemorate and honour their sacrifice.