On Armistice Day, 11th November, as has become the custom, we will be asked to purchase a Red Poppy or a badge or similar item signifying the same. There is a wonderful story on how the Red Poppy has come to signify WWI and the thousands who lost their lives in that conflict.
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A hundred years ago, in early May 1915, the wild Flanders poppies had bloomed and were now dropping their red petals, which were being blown across the battlefield by the wind.
At that time a Canadian officer, Major John McCrae, had just buried a close friend who had been hit by a German shell and he was struck by how incongruous it was that the poppies bloomed in all their beauty while soldiers died and were being buried.
McCrae was inspired by his thoughts to write a poem. In the poem he talks of the petals blowing among the graves while birds sing as the guns thundered and how the dead soldiers will not rest if others do not take up the torch and carry on the fight.
It is said that McCrae threw the poem away but another officer picked it up and sent it to London where it was named In Flanders’ Fields and published in the Spectator.
The poem’s heart piercing words resonated around the world and were reprinted in many hundreds of newspapers and magazines.
Three-and-a-half years later in New York, a couple of days before the Armistice, 11th November 1918, Moina Michael read McCrae’s poem in a magazine. Moina was so impressed by the poem she vowed to always wear a Red Poppy for remembrance; she also purchased 25 silk poppies and distributed them in her office.
Over the next two years Michael lobbied hard to have the red poppy adopted as a symbol of remembrance of WWI and finally, in 1920, the American Legion did so and it was soon adopted by the other countries who had fought in WWI.
The sale of poppies to support the needy from WWI started in Australia in 1921. On 9th November the Sydney Morning Herald reported that 300,000 poppies, made in France, would go on sale on the 11th . They would cost one shilling (1/-) each and one penny would go to the Warrior Friends appeal, five pence to the needy women and children of France and six pence for the relief fund of the returned sailors and Soldiers Imperial League. Poppy sales in Sydney raised £1100.
The Maitland Daily Mercury reported that 1500 poppies had been procured for Maitland and they would be sold about the town by the Ladies Social Committee, the ladies would also hold a sale of fresh flowers at the post office, the proceeds of which would go towards the Christmas party for the widows and orphans of deceased soldiers. All poppies were sold with 200 being sold in East Maitland.
Moina Michael wrote a poem reply to In Flanders’ Fields called We Shall Keep the Faith in which she said the torch was caught and now the torch and poppy red are worn in honour of our dead so the dead have not died for naught.
Nearly 100 years on we keep faith with Moina Michael’s promise by supporting the torch of Legacy and the red poppy on Armistice Day and as we should do in 2015.
