There is no memorial to honour the men who passed through the Gates of the Artists Rifles Regiment WW1 Training Camp, at Hare Hall Gidea Park Essex. There were 15,000 men trained at this important WW1 camp, many never to return. After rigorous training, the cadet recruits became Officers and were posted to the various regiments during the Great War. Many officers went "over the top" with their men where they died together on the battlefields.

We recognise the well known names such as the poets Wilfred Owen and Edward Thomas, the painter John Nash, the actor Noel Coward, and the writer of "A Journey's End" R.C. Sheriff amongst many others. Amongst all the tragic losses, we remember Wilfred Owen's sacrifice as a young British Officer killed at the Battle of Sambre a week before the end of the war on the 4th November 1918; Owen left us with his famous war poetry that lives on to move us and live amongst us still.

In Wilfred Owen's poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” the horror of war is laid bare-the soldiers forced to trudge “through sludge,” though “drunk with fatigue ". As gas shells begin to fall upon them, the soldiers scramble to put on their gas masks to protect themselves. In the rush, one man clumsily drops his mask, and Owen sees the man “yelling out, stumbling and floundering like a man in fire or lime.” The image of the man, “guttering, choking, drowning” remains with Owen as he re-lives the nightmare of war over and over again. At the end of the poem the line “Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori" meaning `It is a sweet and noble thing to die for one’s country`is humbling for all who read it. These words remain with the reader to resonate further about the sacrifice of war.

This Camp is long gone, swept away into a history chapter. But the men should not be forgotten. Their sacrifice helped to make our today. Please help to fund this Memorial to be installed at the site of the Main Camp Gates to honour those men who gave their lives for us. We will remember them.

For more information please see our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/artistsriflesmemorial/