Castleton Station looks ‘blooming’ marvellous in memory of fallen soldiers

Acting Council Chief Executive Linda Fisher and Councillor Billy Sheerin are joined by pupils from St Edwards and Matthew Moss Schools

A community planting scheme has brought a splash of colour to Castleton Train Station.

Around 20 green-fingered students from St. Edwards Primary School and Matthew Moss High School made the best of the beautiful weather to decorate the station with flowers in this year’s Armed Forces theme.

The theme was chosen to commemorate the centenary of the beginning of World War One and is one of a number of events taking place across the borough. The group worked for several hours, filling the station’s planters with geraniums, petunias, begonias and lobelia - provided by Bowlee Nursery - in patriotic red, white and blue colours.

The scheme has been running for four years to great success and this year is bigger than ever after the team worked to transform a patch of rough ground into a field of poppies. The ground just outside the entrance to the station was cleared, weeded and seeded with poppy and wild flower seeds which will make the station look better than ever.

Poppies have been long associated with World War One and Remembrance Day. The flowers were the first to grow on the battlefields after the end of the war and were the subject of the famous poem, 'In Flanders Fields'.

Councillor Billy Sheerin helped organise the planting and said this year was just a little bit more special to him. He said “One hundred years ago, my grandfather left for ‘The Great War’ from this very station. He was clearly upset and drunk, crying and shouting that he would never return. Sadly, he was killed in action and that was the last time any of my family saw him.”

It is expected that the poppies will begin flowering in around eight weeks’ time.