How the Poppy Appeal began - Press Pack 2010
20 October 2010
The first donations for artificial poppies were given in Britain
on 11 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.
More information is available
here.
