Sunday WW1 Remembered..

This week The Royal British Legion has launched its 2017 Poppy Appeal

The Poppy Appeal supports the Armed Forces community, past and present.

The bright red Flanders poppy is a hardy flower. Flourishing in the dark and gloomy days of war, it would spring up in unexpected corners of foreign fields.

In 1915 Lieutenant Colonel John Macrae was inspired by the sight of hundreds of these beautiful red poppies to write his now famous poem 'In Flanders Fields'..

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place..

The poem inspired an American Academic, Moina Micheal to make and sell red silk poppies, and when this idea was brought to the UK by a French woman, Anna Guérin, the British Legion bought 9 million of them and sold the poppies on Armistice Day,11th of November, raising £106,000, which was a vast amount of money in 1921.

In 1922, The Poppy Factory was set up by Major George Hewson and employed disabled ex-service men. Today the factory in Aylesford produces millions of poppies each year.

The poppy remains a symbol of hope and remembrance.

Follow on Twitter @PoppyLegion

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