Island Life October/November 2018

Feature
Wear it with pride
The next few weeks will
see the re-emergence of
those familiar red paper
poppies, adorning coats
and jackets everywhere
from our TV screens
to workplaces, schools
and the High street.
Originally designed to be
worn just on November 11th,
remembrance poppies are now
widely worn from late October
until mid-November, and more
than 40 million of them will be
made for sale in the UK this year.
But how many of us actually
know the origin of this tradition?
Most will grasp the connection
with the poppies that sprang
up on European battlefields
after the bloody horrors of the
First World War – but perhaps
not so many are aware that
the wearing of poppies can be
attributed to a century-old poem.
Penned in 1915 by Canadian
physician John McCrae, the poem,
“In Flanders Fields” was inspired
by his witnessing of the death
of his friend, and describes the
humble field poppies (Papaver
rhoeas) that were the first flowers
to grow in the churned-up earth
of soldiers’ graves in Flanders.
When the poppy was first
adopted as a remembrance
symbol in 1921, the artificial
poppies for Britain’s first appeal
had to be imported from France
– but by the following year, the
Disabled Society was awarded a
grant of £2,000 from the British
Legion for the employment of
disabled ex-service people to
make the symbolic red paper
flowers here in England.
The Poppy Factory was set up
to make them, at a former collar
factory on London’s Old Kent
Road, and before long, it was
employing 50 disabled veterans.
By 1926, demand for the poppies
had increased so much that
the factory outgrew its original
premises and moved on to a
disused brewery in Richmond,
Surrey. Housing for the workforce
and their families was built on
adjacent land and in 1932 the
present factory was built, and
continues to this day to offer
work all year round for disabled
veterans and dependants.
As well as making some 36
million poppies each year (a
further 5 million being made
at Lady Haig’s Poppy Factory
in Scotland), the operation also
creates wreaths, symbols and
remembrance products for the
Royal Family and the Royal British
Legion’s annual Poppy Appeal.
In recent years, celebrities have
taken to wearing somewhat showy
and expensive crystal-clad poppy
brooches instead of the simple
paper variety – and in fact the
British Legion has introduced its
own range of ‘bling’ poppies.
It’s a move that some might
argue, goes against the
whole essence of the poppy,
whose delicate form remains
such a powerful symbol of
the fragile beauty of life.
www.visitilife.com 65