Pages of the Sea
The video invited viewers to participate in “Pages of the Sea.’ Where portraits of a First World War individuals appeared in the sand on beaches through out the UK. The individuals depicted died during the conflict and the event was an opportunity for communities to commemorate and thank them. Four beaches in Cornwall were locations for the portraits, as well as one in Devon and two in Dorset. In East Looe the portrait of Captain Kenneth Walton Grigson (29 June 1895 – 20/ July 1918) appeared. He was born in a nearby village and was killed a few months before Armistice.
Danny Boyle coordinated the commemorative event which also featured a reading of a poem by Carol Anne Duffy. Her poem ‘Wound in Time’ gave the project it’s name:
It is the wound in Time. The century’s tides,
chanting their bitter psalms, cannot heal it.
Not the war to end all wars; death’s birthing place;
the earth nursing its ticking metal eggs, hatching
new carnage. But how could you know, brave
as belief as you boarded the boats, singing?
The end of God in the poisonous, shrapneled air.
Poetry gargling its own blood. We sense it was love
you gave your world for; the town squares silent,
awaiting their cenotaphs. What happened next?
War. And after that? War. And now? War. War.
History might as well be water, chastising this shore;
for we learn nothing from your endless sacrifice.
Your faces drowning in the pages of the sea.Carol Ann Duffy, 2018
