A Season to Remember Published on 26^th November 2025

Remembrance Day marks the day World War One ended – at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, in 1918. It is also known as Armistice Day. This year also marks 80 years since World War Two ended, in 1945.

We now take this day to remember those who fought, those who helped in the war effort and sadly those who lost their lives in this terrible conflict. This year we banded together to make a full display to remember everyone who lived through the horrors that war creates.

Our goal was to create a display of knitted and crocheted poppies to brighten up our centre and give a memorial for any who put in their services.

So we put out an open call to the county of Caithness for talented craftspeople to make us a bounty of poppies, we ended up with a sum of 20 volunteers tirelessly working away, from here in Dunbeath to out at Forse and a pack of determined volunteers in Wick. Some made 20 and some made 200, every contribution made a huge difference to our mission.

The were making 3 varieties of poppies, the standard red poppies the most famous symbol used to commemorate those who sacrificed their lives in World War One and conflicts that followed, and is most often connected to the veterans charity Royal British Legion. We have purple poppies next which represents animals like horses, dogs and pigeons that were often drafted into the war effort, and those that wear the purple poppy feel their service should be seen with equal importance.

Then we have our final poppies which were white, these are often a controversial one being viewed as linked with the white feather symbolism of objection, shame and cowardice, but are now so much more. They are now handed out by a charity called Peace Pledge Union, which promotes peace. They say the white poppy commemorates people who died in conflict, but focuses on achieving peace and challenging the way we look at war. That belongs to those who believe we glorify war and that we can remember the lives lost while focusing on keeping the world a peaceful and conflict free place.

All those colours would make for a beautiful bright display to catch the eye and ensure no one could go by without taking a glance, all deserved to be displayed and all symbols of remembrance have their places.

So with wool in hand they got to work, all shapes and sizes and our 3 beautiful colours. Whether the centres were knitted, crocheted, buttons or stuck on, if they had perfect petals or elegant frills they all made a big impact.

We began gathering up poppies bit by bit from June, some handed them in as they went along and others gave us big bags filled to the brim with our crafted florals. By the beginning of October we had our full selection ready to be threaded, glued, stitched and scattered around the centre.

What a challenge that turned into, but worth every hour, we consulted with Caithness Community Connections who have been helping organise and put up remembrance displays all throughout Caithness on what to use and how to connected them and we got stuck in knees deep to the challenge!

We begin by looking inside at our little through lines inside the building, it gives us something to look at through November a shining beacon of hope and memory in the darkest season and the most wintery of afternoons.

Our 80 and soldiers made for VE Day, the gorgeous window silhouettes, hanging threads of poppies in our dining room, and two pictures with oceans of red to draw the remembrance throughout the building. (You’ll only escape it in the bathroom!)

The shining star of our show is the main display, holding 400 poppies on our current 10 strands, we have a goal to add and mix up our display next year but it is absolutely wonderful to see it all put up.

We had a bit of a challenge tying it all up but with the help of an expert string holder and Daniel’s master knot tying we made it all come together. This bright feature got a lot of attention even as it went up, with many a passerby giving us a wave.

This part of the display holding 400 of our poppies may have you ask how many we received in total, well it was a truly incredible 1,312 poppies that were all immaculately hand crafted, while over half ended up being used between our interior and exterior displays, small badges, and any other décor we have a little reserve left for next year to adapt, change, fix and play with how this might look in the future.

Then we have our incredible team of little helpers, our hot gluing efforts gave us 90 poppy pegs to put into the ground at the memorial garden across the way, and to save our spines from breaking popping them in one by one we asked the excellent staff at Dunbeath Primary School if we could borrow their finest workers (our wonderful local students) for a hard morning of construction.

And by that we of course mean we asked very nicely if they would like to run riot and pop our tent pegs in the ground to brighten the memorial garden up for winter, and we were incredible lucky they said yes. So wrapped up for the mild November weather they grabbed a poppy at a time and filled up each bit of ground with colour and memory. They had clearly been working hard at learning about remembrance as they all told me what each poppy stood for and what remembrance was about.

For their valiant efforts they all got poppy pins and a little treat to go back home with!

I mean look at the team, community spirit at it’s finest, we love seeing them and they are welcome for a visit to cause trouble whenever they would like!

They look amazing with their poppy badges, filling the classroom with our handmade memories!

After they filled our garden with poppies they made us one final remembrance gift just in time for the 11th of November, which was a beautiful collection of remembrance artwork which reflected the emotions you might feel, the stories behind the day and some beautifully crafted poppies, cut out or painted hand prints. (hopefully they didn’t make too much of a mess!)

We have nothing to say to everyone that helped except a giant thank you! For the support, the poppies, the school kids, the over 60 glue sticks holding the displays together and the soldiers who still go and serve to this day.

We here at Dunbeath & District Centre remember and we hope this allows you to remember too.

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