There were already 30,000 ceramic poppies on display – but Queen Camilla brought a few more with her.
The royal, 77, sported a pair of eye-catching black leather gloves embellished with the red flowers, along with a a red wool crepe dress by Fiona Clare and black cape, as she visited the Tower of London.
‘It was so cold this morning I thought it would be the perfect time to wear them,’ she said.
She also admired the poppy new display at the Tower of London to mark 80 years since the end of the Second World War.
Camilla toured the striking installation, The Tower Remembers, which represents a ‘wound’ across the inner walls of the fortress, symbolising the enduring sacrifices made during the conflict.
Poppies flow down the side of the White Tower, where a frozen ‘splash’ of the blood-red flowers begins a cascade of poppies through the heart of the fortress, before emerging under St Thomas’s Tower.
The Tower, which is run by the charity Historic Royal Palaces, still bears the marks of the bombings which killed five people, including a Yeoman Warder during the Blitz.
Camilla then walked through a Guard of Honour formed of six Yeoman Warders, and was led onto the lawn to inspect the new installation by project lead Tom O’Leary.
Queen Camilla views the display of ceramic poppies for the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, at the Tower of London
The Queen donned her own poppies along with a a red wool crepe dress by Fiona Clare and black cape
Queen Camilla views the display of ceramic poppies for the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, at the Tower of London
The display will remain until November 11
There was cheering and applause from the crowd of tourists watching from behind a cordon, and one man shouted: ‘God save the King! We all love Camilla! Give us a wave!’
The Queen met Yeoman Warder Tracey Machin, along with her son Harrison, five, and D-Day veterans Henry Rice, 99, a former Royal Navy signalman and Richard Aldred, a tank driver in the Inniskilling Dragoon Guards.
‘It’s very nice to see you,’ she told the veterans, ‘Not too cold?’
Richard handed the Queen a ceramic poppy, while Henry presented one to Harrison and they paused while Poet Laureate Simon Armitage read out a specially commissioned VE 80 poem, In Retrospect, before planting each of the flowers into the ground to complete the installation.
Speaking afterwards Henry Rice said: ‘Last year I went to Normandy and had the pride and pleasure of meeting His majesty and Her Majesty. I said to her quietly, ‘We met last year’, she said, ‘Yes, I know’ and that that is fabulous.
‘I mean, why should she remember me?’
He described the King and Queen as ‘A gentleman and his lady,’ adding ‘That’s truly the best compliment I can pay to both of because that’s exactly how I feel about them, and I’m speaking truthfully as well.’He said of the installation, ‘Each one of those poppies represents a man that gave his life to allow me, my family, this country, in fact, to live in peace and comfort.
‘I don’t go around thinking of men that gave their lives and all that sort of thing. But then suddenly, when you’re in a situation, you’re sitting quietly, or you’re out walking in the park, and suddenly it comes into your mind, and you realise exactly what these men did, how I really do thank them, and they are my heroes, all of them. Those that are alive even.
‘I was in the Royal Navy, on board ship. These men then left my ship. I was on landing ships, and they ran up the beach into a hail of bullets and everything, and I sat quietly on my ship.
‘They were so brave, but I don’t know whether I could do it.’
The new display, which is open to the public until November 11, uses poppies created for the 2014 installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, which saw the Tower encircled by a sea of more than 880,000 ceramic flowers.
The 30,000 in use this year are among 40,000 that were bought for the nation by philanthropists Dame Vivienne Duffield and Dame Susie Sainsbury after the original installation and donated to the Imperial War Museum.
