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Remembered Today:

"There but not there" centenary remembrance.


steandpaula

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Anyone else seen this ?

https://www.therebutnotthere.org.uk/

A short video

https://www.therebutnotthere.org.uk/gallery/

 

Kind of ties in with a topic knocking around about who would you like to meet/talk to if you could, as you can name the figure/block on offer?

 

I'm think of getting one in remembrance of my great grandfather John Samuel Leach MGC, awarded MM for action at St Quentin 21/3/18, but I never met him.

Regards

Ste

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Sebastian Faulks was on a BBC News item promoting this. Have ordered a figure - neither expensive nor inexpensive but then then perspex is not a cheap material.

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First thoughts:

 

- The project is raising money for what I consider to be very worthwhile causes, some of which are very close to my heart (and head).

- They can't spell Air Marshal correctly.

- 2 out of 3 of the aims focus on the dead which as we know make up around 11% (yes, I may be a few percentage points out but you get the idea) of the overall force.  

- I think the cut out Tommy is very striking.

 

Let the battle of the Centenary projects begin.  

 

 

 

 

 

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They have now amended the spelling of Air Marshal.  

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  • 4 weeks later...

  I have just received my ‘Tommy’ {delivery was held up by the recent bad weather} and am really impressed with it. The quality is excellent and, depending on how you look at it the outline of the figure is obvious, and at other times you can hardly see it. Very much 'there but not there'. Also, all profits go to good causes, and the figures are made by veterans who work for Royal British Legion Industries.

Regards,

Alf McM

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20 hours ago, alf mcm said:

  I have just received my ‘Tommy’ {delivery was held up by the recent bad weather} and am really impressed with it. The quality is excellent and, depending on how you look at it the outline of the figure is obvious, and at other times you can hardly see it. Very much 'there but not there'. Also, all profits go to good causes, and the figures are made by veterans who work for Royal British Legion Industries.

 

Regards,

 

Alf McM

 

Mine arrived last week and I couldn't agree more. One of the best "commemorative" productions for a number of years. Puts some of the other "tat" being peddled well in the shade.

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I've just ordered one. As Colonel D says, the causes are dear to our hearts (and heads) and I'd happily give them 30 quid anyway.

Edited by Steven Broomfield
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I would love to order one to commemorate my great uncle, but I don't think they ship outside the UK. As I am no longer a UK resident, this makes me very sad indeed. I would love to support this. 

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Can I just ask what/where people intend to display their cut-out Tommies? I'd like to commemorate my great-uncle somehow, but where would I install a figure?His local chapel has long since gone and if it still existed, it would be in Wales.

 

Sue.

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I confess that if I display mine in the same way I displayed my Tower Poppy, it will be in a box somewhere on a shelf while my wife and I wonder what to do with it. Every so often (about every three months), one of us will find it and say "We must do something with this", and back on the shelf it will go pending the next shelf-search (usually for -

 

To be fair, it has provided hours of innocent amusement across the past few years.

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I received mine the other day. It sits over the fireplace, on the mantlepiece, in the living room. When the sun shines through the window it lights up nicely, and as it also casts a shadow it can be seen in shadow on the back wall. So, there but not there.

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My Tommy is on a window sill. Depending on the angle of the sun you can see the figure in outline. With the sun behind the figure he becomes invisible, but I know he's there.

 

Regards,

 

Alf McM

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Mine is on a cupboard in the simulated lounge room with some other WW1 items, a china tank, Old Bill bust, PM tin, small model rats...it is just behind them and appears to come and go as the light changes and the angle you look at it. There but not there indeed and a terrific idea by whoever thought it up and designed it.

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What's a 'simulated lounge room', and where do I get one?

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Ordered mine today. Anyone used the Timpson voucher ?

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23 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said:

What's a 'simulated lounge room', and where do I get one?

The room we are able to afford which is not the same as the one we would like...remember Dame Edna?

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think it's a very clever idea – someone was thinking outside the box. Mine, which commemorates four great uncles, is on the window sill and in daylight it is indeed 'there but not there'. Has anyone seen one of the huge ones costing £750 or the silhouettes on a bench or chair?

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On 08/04/2018 at 14:54, steandpaula said:

Ordered mine today. Anyone used the Timpson voucher ?

Got mine last week and agree with the comments about the quality. Took it to Timpsons and they were great, the plaque sets it off brilliantly. Would have cost £25 !!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

I saw yesterday some of these figures in St. George's Memorial Church in Ypres (it was the first time I saw them and luckily someone explained me what they were). They look very nice there, just like there is someone sitting on the church chairs.

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I spotted one of these figures on a small green in the Southdown area of Harpenden in Hertfordshire. 

 

It isn't next to a church or war memorial, it just stands on its own without any inscription or explanation.

 

Understated, yes, and all the better for it.

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