What made you choose 100 Victoria Cross Winners?
Coming to prison was a major factor in how my views changed. If I wanted to change I would have to question my long-held beliefs. It was those beliefs that ultimately led to my crime and subsequent imprisonment. But perhaps the single most significant event in changing my views on Remembrance and The Poppy occurred in 2011, when Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, visited Dublin. When Her Majesty laid a wreath at a memorial to the soldiers of the Easter Rising of 1916 I was more profoundly affected than I would have thought possible. It was time to let the past go. Another effect of that Royal visit was to bring attention to a War Memorial in the Dublin suburbs – a hidden memorial that carries the names of the Irish men who fought in World War 1.
As an Irishman, I was ashamed I did not know that 200,000 Irish men fought in the war – nor did I know that some 50,000 lost their lives. They were effectively wiped from the history books, their shame was in accepting ‘The King’s Shilling’.
The more I read about the war, the more I realised that it was truly a World War, not just a white man’s fight in French trenches. This was what started me on my journey to try and highlight some of the most significant moments of The Great War. I wasn’t interested in the politics, the governments or monarchies – I wanted to focus on individual people – which led me to the Victoria Cross and John Cornwell.
I read the account of 16-year-old John Cornwell and I struggled to try and comprehend how this young kid had acted with such bravery in circumstances far beyond my ability to imagine. I knew that his story would need to be re-told.
Then JOTT arrived at the prison. I met him through a moment of sheer fluke and he told me that he could draw Cornwell’s portrait. With JOTT’s drawing and my words we created the first image. We then figured we should do two more. We reasoned that we had covered the Navy so we needed candidates from the Army and the Air Force. I began to search through Victoria Cross winners for stand-out winners – I realise now how utterly naive and disrespectful that was.
There were 634 Winners of the Victoria Cross during the First World War. I learned that every VC awarded was for outstanding gallantry. There were no ‘stand-out’ winners, every winner was outstanding. Furthermore, as I read I saw the sheer diversity of those that had been awarded VCs. Our three candidates became ten; ten became twenty; twenty became fifty and so on until it only seemed logical to pay homage to 100 VC winners – one for each year of the century since the Armistice. Among our VC winners were English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, South Africans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, a Ukrainian, a Dane, Pakistani and Indians.
Our 100 VC winners highlighted how far reaching the war was. Their individual accounts were more relatable than lists of the statistics of the millions that died. Their stories made people realise that each victim of war was a living breathing person – an ordinary, everyday person.
But our relationship with young John Cornwell did not end there. We were working in conjunction with Leigh Chalmers and the stone masons of Salisbury Cathedral to create a permanent stone memorial to be placed in the prison grounds.
Leigh had seen the A4 biography cards / portraits that we had done and asked if we might create a selection that she could feature in a display at the cathedral. We were happy to oblige and created nine large versions of our bio-cards for Salisbury, John Cornwell was among the nine that we sent to Salisbury in mid-October.
When the team from Salisbury came to install the stone memorial on 9th November, the ever-chirpy Leigh was wearing an even wider smile than usual. JOTT and I were almost speechless when she told us why.
Our portraits had gathered quite a lot of attention at Salisbury – they had been appreciated by hundreds of visitors, perhaps none more so than a man who was dumbstruck when he saw John Cornwell’s portrait. This visitor was a living relative of the young hero! He had enquired about buying the picture; we insisted he should just be given it. It seemed to be the only fitting thing to do.
So it is that 16-year-old John Cornwell is both our 1st and 101st Victoria Cross Winner. His bravery started this whole process. His story is at the centre of a connection between prisoners and the public. More than 100 years after his death, this boy’s short life has served to highlight how much we have in common with each other and how we all have a duty to remember the sacrifices made on our behalf.
It is said that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. As I look back on this Remembrance I feel that I have done my part – I have not forgotten. Furthermore, I felt a connection with the world at large. The barbed wire of the trenches may be gone, but its legacy meant that I could share a moment of silence with the whole world on November 11th. It helped me forget the barbed wire that separates me from society – at least for a little while.
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