The Poppy

During a lull in the second battle of Ypres in 1915, Colonel John McCrae,
a well known Professor of Medicine at a Canadian University,
wrote these lines on a page torn from his notebook.

In May 1918, Col. McCrae was brought as a stretcher case to one of the big hospitals on the coast of France. On the third evening he was wheeled to the balcony of his room to look over the sea towards Dover. The verses were obviously in his mind, for he said to the doctor who was in charge of his case, "Tell them, if ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep." That same night Col McCrae died. Each Remembrance Day the RBL lay a wreath on his grave - a tribute to a great man whose thoughts were always for others.