Every year around Armistice Day (11 November) the British public come together to remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice or been injured in war.

An important public display of our support to the Royal British Legion and their selfless support to British Servicemen and woman and their families is through the wearing of a Poppy. In PNG, Poppies are now available at the reception of the British High Commission Office in, Waigani, Port Moresby. 

The first donations for artificial poppies were given in Britain on 11th November 1921, inspired by John McCrae's 1915 poem 'In Flanders' Fields'.

Some of the bloodiest fighting of World War I took place in the Flanders and Picardy regions of Northern France. In the aftermath of the war's total devastation the only thing which would grow on the land was the poppy. McCrae, a doctor serving there with the Canadian Armed Forces, wrote these verses about what he saw:

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.

Moina Michael, an American War Secretary with the YMCA, was moved by McCrae's work to write: And now the torch and Poppy red, wear in honour of our dead. She bought red poppies and sold them to her friends to raise money for Servicemen in need. Her French colleague, Madame Guerin, proposed the making of artificial poppies and their sale to help ex-Servicemen and their dependants.

In Britain, Major George Howson, a young infantry officer, formed the Disabled Society, to help disabled ex-Servicemen and women from World War I. Howson suggested to the Legion that members of the Disabled Society could make poppies and the Poppy Factory was subsequently founded in 1922.

The original poppy was designed so that workers with a disability could easily assemble it and that principle remains today. More than 70% of Poppy Factory employees have a disability or chronic illness.
Website: www.poppy.org.uk

 

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