A POIGNANT display featuring artwork and words from children will feature in a supermarket window to commemorate the armistice.

Children from the Popley Spotlight Centre are working on banners to go on display in Tesco at Chineham Shopping Centre.

The display will feature poppies with statements written by the children about what Remembrance Sunday means to them, which will then be combined to make one giant poppy.

Helen Hooper, out of school club manager at Popley Spotlight Centre, who has coordinated the project, said: “It’s important for them to know that the people we lost during the war fought for our country and we are here because of them and that’s what we want them to remember.

“It’s to make them think about what it actually means. Some of them have really got the understanding and can appreciate that these people fought and lost their lives for us to give us freedom.”

Pupils at St Mary’s Junior School, in Old Basing, are also preparing to mark the armistice by holding a peace week in November.

Matthew Rundle, who is coordinating the project, said: “Across the week the children will each be contributing to our new banner for the hall, this follows on from a competition we have had within school.”

Peace week will give children the opportunity to look at the idea of peace, 100 years after the end of the First World War.

As part of the preparations, children were asked to come up with a design for a banner to feature in the school hall.

The chosen design will then be made into a banner in collaboration with a retired member of the armed services who now teaches embroidery.

Mr Rundle said: “We are also going to be looking at a variety of children’s literature to do with the First World War and the school library service have been assisting us in our work here.

“We will also have our mid-week act of worship led by one of the padres from RAF Odiham.”