London's Covid wall of hearts

Memorial to Covid victims - 26th April 2021

Bereaved families of Covid-19 victims along with several volunteers have begun the creation of a vast Covid-19 memorial wall in London.

The mural consists of 150,000 individual red hearts – one for each of the lives lost to the virus. Organisers of the project cleaned off existing marks from the wall before using paint pens to draw each heart.

“This is an outpouring of love,” remarked Matt Fowler, co-founder of the organisation Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice. He lost his dad Ian, 56, to the virus. "Each heart is individually hand-painted - utterly unique, just like the loved ones we have lost. And like the scale of our collective loss, this memorial is going to be enormous. We know not everyone can come down here to see it, but we really hope this can become a focal point for remembering this national tragedy.”

Starting on Westminster Bridge, to the south of the Thames, the finished mural is expected to extend for over a kilometre and a half along the river. It will go past several significant London landmarks such as the Houses of Parliament and St Thomas' hospital, where leader Boris Johnson was treated for coronavirus last year.

Organisers said that the memorial wall was not meant to be "political or antagonistic" but provide a "visual representation" of every life lost. The group hopes to put personal stories at the heart of the government's approach to learn lessons from the pandemic.

Visiting the mural, leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, stated: "It's very moving and emotional to hear first-hand from those who have lost someone and what it means to them."