Article Title: "Poppies for Remembrance"

Author: Sheila Convey

Society Membership Level: Field Investigation Team

Copyright: Sheila Convey

Year Published: 2009

Miscellaneous: Sources: www.greatwar.co.uk; www.poppy.org.uk; www.arlingtoncemetery.net; www.dailymail.co.uk; http://en.wikipedia.org/; Michael.M.B. "The Miracle Flower". Dorrance & Company, 1941

The humble poppy has been seen as a symbol of remembrance since the end of the First World War. Few emblems are as instantly recognizable. November is when we wear an artificial flower in memory of those who paid the ultimate price for their country.

The poppy associated with the tradition is Papaver rhoeas a species of flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae. Its common names include, Field Poppy, Corn Poppy, Flanders Poppy or simply Red Poppy. It has a long-lived seed bank and is capable of germinating when the soil is disturbed. It is regarded as a weed of agriculture having the ability to flower and seed itself before cereals are harvested and is tolerant of many weed control methods.

Poppies have been used as a symbol of sleep and death for many years: sleep because of the Opium Poppy (PAPAVER somniferum) and death because of the common blood-red colour.

The red poppy worn to honour the dead of battle has nothing to do with the blood that was shed but represents the wild flowers that grew in the trenches and craters created when shells and shrapnel opened up the ground. Not much else could grow in a soil that was rich in lime from all the rubble. They were the first plants to appear on soldiers’ graves in Belgium and France.

It was during WWI that John McCrae, a medical Officer in the Canadian Army was inspired to write what is regarded as the most famous wartime poem, ‘In Flanders Fields’ after he witnessed a friend being killed the previous day in 1915.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae didn’t make it home but his words inspired an American teacher called Moina Belle Michael. She came across the poem in a magazine she was reading during a break whilst working at the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries’ headquarters during an annual conference in New York. The poem, then called ‘We Shall Not Sleep’ was lavishly illustrated so although she was familiar with it the last verse seemed to have more meaning that day. She promised herself that she would ‘keep the faith’, even jotting down a response on the back of a used envelope: “We shall keep the faith”. She later wrote a poem with that title.

Moina was given $10 by the conference delegates in thanks for her work and she spent this on 25 silk poppies. She pinned one to her coat and sold the rest to the delegates.

It took her two years to get the poppy adopted as a national remembrance symbol but success came at the National American Legion’s conference where an announcement was made in 1920.

The poppy also inspired a lady called Anna E. Guerin, a native of France. She saw it as a way of raising money for children in her own country and organized the sales of millions that had been made by the widows of French ex servicemen.

In 1921 she sent her poppy sellers to London where Field Marshall Douglas Haig, a senior commander during WWI and a founder of the Royal British Legion, took up the idea. By autumn of that year the newly established legion sold its first remembrance poppies. They raised £106,000

Major George Howson MC was the man put in charge of setting up a factory to produce the poppies. It was to offer work to as many of the 100,000 ex servicemen as it could.

On May 14, 1922 he wrote to his parents: “I have been given a cheque for £2,000 to make poppies with. It’s a large responsibility and will be difficult. If the experiment is successful it will be the start of an industry to employ 150 men. I do not think it can be a great success but it is worth trying. I consider the attempt ought to be made to give the disabled their chance.”

The factory opened in London’s Old Kent Road and took on five disabled men. Within a few months the staff had risen to 50.

In 1926 Haig’s wife started a similar factory in Scotland. The Lady Haig Poppy Factory in Edinburgh now makes around 5.1 million poppies each year.

When production first started all the poppies were made from cloth, a metal stem and a button made from pitch.

By 1933 they couldn’t meet demand at Old Kent Road and they had suffered a warehouse fire the previous year so a move was inevitable. They went to the London suburb of Richmond where they continue to this day.

Sadly Major Hudson died soon after the move, aged only 50. He is not forgotten though. Every year on the anniversary of his death a special poppy wreath is delivered to the family home in Oxfordshire.

The factory is a charity in its own right and sells its products at cost to the Royal British Legion who distributes them in return for donations and so millions of pounds pour into the welfare fund. All its workers must be ex Forces or disabled dependants of someone who has served his country. The ethos is that every person is expected to work to the best of their abilities. It doesn’t matter if one person’s output is double that of another as long as they are both working equally hard. There is also a network of around 80 home-workers-many of them Forces widows.

It seems extraordinary that every poppy in England and Wales has come out of one room in Richmond and is still produced by around 150 people. There is a wide range of crosses and wreaths as well as the special corsages worn by the Queen and the rest of the Royals. However, the simple red paper poppy is the mainstay. Blue wreaths filled with carnations are an oddity. They are made for the SAS who never march in the parades but have requested the colours match their belts.

Last year the factory made over 38 million poppies, 100,000 wreaths, 650,000 special large buttonhole poppies and 750,000 crosses. They raised over £30 million. Production is up 10 million on ten years ago but the unbroken record stands at 45 million poppies made at the end of WWII. They send out to commemorative ceremonies around the world and cover 254 plots as well as the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey. It is one of the all time greats when it comes to marketing successes in the charity world.

The Royal British Legion’s site states: “The 2009 Poppy Appeal is emphasising the need to help the Afghan generation of the Armed Forces and their families-today and for the rest of their lives. For their sake, wear a poppy…”

Moina Michael’s poem, ‘We Shall Keep The Faith’ is still as poignant today as it was in 1918.

Oh! You who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet to rise anew!
We caught the torch that you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With all who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valour led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honour of our dead.
Fear not that ye have die for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.