The man who painted the first heart on the UK's largest Covid memorial, along the South Bank of the River Thames, hopes it will become a permanent tribute to lives lost in the pandemic.
Matthew Fowler said it was an "immeasurable honour" to paint the first heart on the wall in 2021The man who painted the first heart on the UK's largest Covid memorial hopes it will become a permanent tribute to lives lost in the pandemic.
Exactly two years on and more than 200,000 drawings later, volunteers have continued to fix fading hearts.Mr Fowler's father Ian died in April 2020 after contracting Covid a month earlier, before the country went into lockdown.More than 200,000 hearts have been attached to the wall, with volunteers continuing to add to it
"It was an immeasurable honour to draw that first heart," the 35-year-old from Nuneaton told the BBC."There was nothing to acknowledge all those people, nothing to properly memorialise them.Image source,Mr Fowler co-founded the Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice group in 2020, with the view of campaigning for lessons to be learned from the pandemic.on the death certificate since the virus emerged in January 2020.
"Through our hard work and through the public recognition of a memorial like this, the hope is that it will eventually become a permanent fixture," Mr Fowler said.
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