Why poppy for remembrance day

Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.

Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated.

Find out more about page archiving. The poppies thrived in the environment, their colours standing out against the blasted terrain. The Canadian Legion, formed in , continued this connection. The practice quickly spread to the UK, where the first ever Poppy Day was held on 11 November, , the third anniversary of Armistice Day. Some people say a poppy should be worn on the left lapel, to keep it close to your heart — it is also the side that medals are worn by the Armed forces.

Others argue that the symbol should be displayed on the left by men and the right by women, the traditional positions of a badge or brooch. Log In. Previously beautiful landscapes turned to mud; bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could grow. There was a notable and striking exception to the bleakness - the bright red Flanders poppies.

These resilient flowers flourished in the middle of so much chaos and destruction, growing in the thousands upon thousands. Shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was moved by the sight of these poppies and that inspiration led him to write the now famous poem 'In Flanders Fields'. The poem then inspired an American academic named Moina Michael to adopt the poppy in memory of those who had fallen in the war.

She campaigned to get it adopted as an official symbol of Remembrance across the United States and worked with others who were trying to do the same in Canada, Australia, and the UK.

There she met Earl Haig, our founder, who was persuaded to adopt the poppy as our emblem in the UK. The Royal British Legion, which had been formed in , ordered nine million poppies and sold them on 11 November that year. The poppies sold out almost immediately.

Today's Poppy Appeal? In view of how quickly the poppies had sold and wanting to ensure plenty of poppies for the next appeal, Major George Howson set up the Poppy Factory to employ disabled ex-servicemen.