Community scatters poppy seeds for First World War centenary

WH 010414 10,000 poppy seeds were sown at Ferring Village Green to commemorate the First World War

Parish councillors and members of the public scattered seeds last Tuesday before the Rev Gary Ingram, of St Andrew’s Church, in Church Lane, Ferring, read a prayer to remember those who lost their lives in the Great War.

Doreen Doig, of Sea Lane, Ferring, brought the binoculars her father used in the war to the service, as well as her father-in-law’s Military Cross.

She said: “We should never forget what our fathers and grandfathers did, they were brave men, they were young men. My father, private William Willis, spent his 21st birthday in the trenches on the Somme. He was just an insurance clerk, not a professional soldier. To take a man of that age straight from an office desk into the trenches of the Somme is sad – he never talked about it.”

For the full story and more pictures, see the Worthing Herald, Thursday, April 10.