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Flanders and Picardy in northern France and Belgium, saw some of the most
concentrated fighting of the First World War.
There was complete devastation. Buildings, roads, trees and natural life
simply disappeared. Where once there were homes and farms there was now a
sea of mud. But still the Poppy flowered every year with the coming of the
warm weather and brought life, hope, colour and reassurance to an
otherwise devastated place.
John McCrae, a doctor serving with the Canadian Armed Forces, was so
deeply moved by what he saw in northern France that, in 1915 he wrote the
poem, 'In Flanders Field'.
McCrae's poem was eventually published in Punch and civilians around the
world began to realise the full horror of the war in France, and in the
trenches.
McCrae died in 1918 in a military hospital on the French Channel coast.
Shortly before he died he is said to have murmured:
Tell
them this, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep.
On
1918, on the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month, the
First World War ended. Thousands had died; thousands more had been injured
and scarred by their experiences. The men and women who had survived
returned to their homes. For them though, the world would never be the
same.
Moina Michael, an American War Secretary with the
YMCA and a writer, was moved by McCrae's work and she wrote:
And
now the torch and Poppy red
Wear in honour of our dead
Miss Michael bought red poppies with money that had been given to her by
work colleagues, and wearing one of the poppies she had bought, sold the
remainder to her friends to raise a small amount of money for Servicemen
in need. A French colleague, Madame Guerin, encouraged by what Moina
Michael had achieved with the poppy emblem, proposed the making and sale
of artificial poppies to help ex-Servicemen and their families. And so the
tradition began.
In Britain,
Major George Howson, an infantry officer decorated for bravery, was also
deeply moved by the plight of ex-Service people who seemed unemployable in
peacetime. He formed the Disabled Society to help them.
The British Legion - now The Royal British Legion - was formed in 1921 to
give practical help and companionship to ex-Service people and their
dependants.
Howson thought the making of artificial poppies might offer opportunities
for The Disabled Society and approached the Legion with his suggestions.
And so The Royal British Legion poppy factory was established employing
many disabled people making poppies, wreaths and other items associated
with the poppy appeal.
The first Poppy Day was held in Britain on 11 November 1921 and since then
the Poppy Appeal has become a key annual appeal in the nation's calendar.
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