Animals at War Exclusive

When Jilly Cooper wrote her book Animals in War she struck a nerve with animal lovers everywhere and started the ball rolling with a campaign that allowed one and a half million pounds to be raised by donation and thus build a memorial to the animals that served and suffered in war.  It now stands proudly on London’s Park Lane. In the Great War, aka World War I, eight million horses, as well as countless mules and donkeys died. One hundred thousand pigeons also served the country, carrying messages to and from the front line. Nothing is known of their fate.

To general amazement, when the National Theatre on London’s South Bank put on their production of War Horse, based on Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 children’s book, it had a monster hit on its hands. Such was the buzz about the drama that Stephen Spielberg took up the film option and turned it into a major movie starring Emily Watson and David Thewliss; with 14 different horses playing the hero Joey.

Now Royal Crown Derby has created its own fitting tribute to the animal heroes of the Great War with its WW1 Derby War Horse. Derby based Tien Manh Dinh, who studied in Staffordshire, home of the Potteries,  has designed a  collectable that will be a pleasure to own, while reminding us of those horse’s service in a time of war . It’s a limited edition, so once all have been sold and treasured there will be no more. Itself a poignant reminder of lost time, lost life, lost opportunity.