Remembrance: Returning, We Hear The Larks
Remembrance: Returning, We Hear The Larks was a site-specific performance-installation hosted by, and created with, Lancaster Priory and its congregation to mark the centenary of the end of World War One.
The installation opened as part of Light Up Lancaster 2018 and continued throughout the following week as part of the Remembrance Weekend and The Battle's Over, the national Armistice commemoration marking the end of hostilities on 11 November 1918.
Remembrance: Returning, We Hear The Larks incorporated a mound of prayer kneelers and prayer books interlaced with 2,000 handmade paper roses before the altar. A garment, draped over an empty chair, carried a projected film combining archive footage from the North West Film Archive of the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment leaving Lancaster for the Front with two historic photographs of Lancaster Priory bell ringers.
The installation was inspired by two historic photographs of the Lancaster Priory bell ringers (shown in the Gallery). One, taken in 1887, shows an all-male band of bell ringers. The second, taken on Armistice Day in 1918, shows four of these same men, now much older, alongside six young women who had joined the band to fill the spaces left by men who had been killed in the war or had not yet returned from action. Together, the photographs quietly reveal the impact of war on a community and became the starting point for Remembrance: Returning, We Hear The Larks.
These photographs became the starting point for the project. One, taken in 1887, shows an all-male band of bell ringers. The second, taken on Armistice Day in 1918, shows four of these same men, now much older, alongside six young women who had joined the band to fill the places left by men who had been killed in the war or had not yet returned from action. Together they quietly reveal the lasting impact of war upon a community.
The sound of larks and distant church bells hung in the air. A new choral setting of Isaac Rosenberg's poem Returning, We Hear The Larks, composed by Don Gillthorpe (Director of Music at Lancaster Priory), was sung by the Priory Choir. Women from the congregation embodied women who, in 1918—and through conflicts since—had yearned for lost sons, husbands, fathers and lovers. Their still gestures were drawn from a painting of The Last Supper dedicated to 'the loving memory of William Haigh Abbott: killed in action at Meteren April 18th 1918 and erected by his father & mother'.
Throughout the installation, visitors placed 6,500 red cards, each bearing the name of a soldier from the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment who did not return from the First World War. Gradually every pew, aisle and corner of the Priory became filled with a sea of remembered names.
Created, designed and directed by: Louise Ann Wilson
Choral composition: Don Gillthorpe
Lighting: Brent Lees
Project management: Steph Edwards and Louise Ann Wilson
Project assistance: David Honeybone
Sound editing (larks and bells): Esther Edusi
Film editing: Janan Yakula
Archive film: North West Film Archive
Bell-ringer photographs restored by: Steve Smith
The Last Supper women: Ellen Francis, Fieona Dixon, Pam Robinson, Alison Hetherington, Sally Bushell, Dylan Bushell, Awena Carter, Christine Dowbiggin, Gill Witt, Sarah Hutchins, Gillian Mawby, Jan Crouch, Lois Kirtley, Barbara Bland, Christine Dickinson, Hilary Hopwood, Liz Bagley, Sue Clark, Hermione Roff, Margaret Pattinson, Katrina Waine, Teresa Zagaria, Gaynor Young and Beverley Roberts.
Rose makers: Marion Wilcockson, Bill Wilcockson, Beverley Roberts, Marilyn Kenney, Jean Simpson, Lois Kirtley, Brian Kirtley, Linda Altham, Margaret Stevens, Liz Bagley, Helen Coyne, Bryony Smissen, Sally Bushell, Dylan Bushell, Rita Davies, Julie Forsdick, Tim Forsdick, Mary Anderton and Gill Witt.
Red card makers: Diane Howe, Brian Kirtley, Alice Granger, Mark Edwards, Kaarina Leong-Smith, David Meikle and Jackie Garnett.
Choir: Bella Leong-Smith, Ellen Griffiths, Ellie Blewitt, Katie Roberts, Phoebe Heywood, Lauren Osmond, Charlotte Beck, Jeremiah Powers, Kaarina Leong, Cameron Aveyard, Daniel Hilton, Jason Roberts, Adam Hilton and Alex Peters.
Stewards: Diane Howe, Valerie Pearson, Tim Girling, Peter Pattinson, Brian Evans, Alec Crouch, Brian Greenwood, Paul Mullineaux, Hilary Greenwood, David Chung, Renate Wimbourne, Jon Wimbourne, Mark Edwards, John Dickson and Richard Carter.
With thanks to: everyone who donated buttons; Jones & Co (Nottingham) Ltd for their generous donation; Peter Donnelly at the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum for compiling the list of the 6,500 soldiers; The Revd Chris Newlands; the Lancaster Priory vergers—Alice Granger, Stuart Birse and Tom Barnish; Julie Brown, George Harris and Brent Lees; Light Up Lancaster; The Dukes; Lancaster Arts at Lancaster University; and Nigel Stewart.
Funded and supported by: Light Up Lancaster, Lancaster Priory, The Dukes Lancaster, Lancaster Arts at Lancaster University and Louise Ann Wilson Company.
Returning, We Hear Larks
Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.
Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp –
On a little safe sleep.
But hark! joy – joy – strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.
Music showering our upturned list'ning faces.
Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song –
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man's dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl's dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.
Issac Rosenberg
Returning, We Hear Larks
Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.
Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp –
On a little safe sleep.
But hark! joy – joy – strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.
Music showering our upturned list'ning faces.
Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song –
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man's dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl's dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.
Issac Rosenberg
Thankyou so much for Returning, We Hear the Larks. The whole concept and its installation was overwhelming – the impact of all the red roses and the tumbling pile of red in the sanctuary, the movement, the poses, all the red envelopes [cards], symbolising a boy lost to his faily, was almost unbearably moving. And then the whole this blessed by the sound of larks and punctuated with music, while women fro mall around the Church moved slowly and purposefully to take their places by the altar! Using the imagery of the Last Supper a young man lost with his friends was another layer suffused with grief – And yet holding all the promise of resurrection.
...utterly beautiful... people were very move
...really beutifual, atmospheric and moving... the highlight of Light Up Lancaster for me.
Brilliant and almost unbearably moving.
Outstanding, stunning and deeply moving.
Wonderful stuff. The suspension of normal life in the grievers; the precarity of grief reflected in the kneeling cushions - red angular dissolving into something more crumbled and organic, the red cards spilling out like rivers all around the priory. Walking through a tunnel of song. Renewal.
Audience Responses, Rememberance: Returning,We Hear The Larks.
Thankyou so much for Returning, We Hear the Larks. The whole concept and its installation was overwhelming – the impact of all the red roses and the tumbling pile of red in the sanctuary, the movement, the poses, all the red envelopes [cards], symbolising a boy lost to his faily, was almost unbearably moving. And then the whole this blessed by the sound of larks and punctuated with music, while women fro mall around the Church moved slowly and purposefully to take their places by the altar! Using the imagery of the Last Supper a young man lost with his friends was another layer suffused with grief – And yet holding all the promise of resurrection.
...utterly beautiful... people were very move
...really beutifual, atmospheric and moving... the highlight of Light Up Lancaster for me.
Brilliant and almost unbearably moving.
Outstanding, stunning and deeply moving.
Wonderful stuff. The suspension of normal life in the grievers; the precarity of grief reflected in the kneeling cushions - red angular dissolving into something more crumbled and organic, the red cards spilling out like rivers all around the priory. Walking through a tunnel of song. Renewal.
Audience Responses, Rememberance: Returning,We Hear The Larks.
