rememberance sunday

[annie b]

why do we wear poppies for rememberance sunday ?

[NapoleonSolo]

I was told Poppies were amongst the first plants to re-appear on the  battle fields of France after WWI. Some said the flowers red colour was from the blood of the soldiers buried beneath the ground, obviously nonsense but it helped create the symbolism.

[Octavius]

see http://www.poppy.org/ - thats why

[Octavius]

Sorry annie b didn't mean to sound aloof.  Here is the full answer (from the site & relevant to the 2004 appeal)...- had to edit to fit in

2004 POPPY APPEAL - KELLY HOLMES
Last year the �21.7 million raised by the Poppy Appeal helped the Legion to:
�         Answer over 300,000 calls for assistance
�         Give 4,200 ex-Service people respite in Legion welfare break centres
�         Represent 3,900 pensions appeal cases at tribunal
�         Look after 420 people in Legion care homes
�         Give more than �9.5 million in Welfare grants
�         Campaign for War Pensions Disregards, Noise-Induced Hearing Loss and a public enquiry into Gulf War-related illnesses
�         Provide start-up funding for 70 businesses, helping nearly 3,000 people find work
�         Help many D-Day veterans return to Normandy for this year�s 60th Anniversary.

Kelly Holmes said: "I�m really honoured to be launching the 2004 Poppy Appeal today. During my time in the Army the work of the Legion was very apparent and I�m hoping that in some way my being here today with Colin will help to demonstrate the ongoing importance of the Legion and the Poppy Appeal. I ask everyone to do their bit and wear their poppy with pride."

Poppies will be available from 30th October.  

The Legion will also be repeating its annual call for a nationwide Two Minute Silence at 11 o�clockon  Armistice Day the 11th of November.

 

[Octavius]

Thismay be what you are looking for...

http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/who/poppy_history.asp

[el duerino]

how many people will observe the silence :(

[Octavius]

Remembrance transcends all boundaries. The Legion seeks a small yet important individual and collective act, a rare moment when the Nation can stand together and reflect on the price of freedom. That price is still being paid. More than 12,000 British Servicemen and women have been killed or injured on active service since 1945. ."If we are to maintain our peace and freedom we must always remember". 

The revival of support for observance of this demonstrates that, despite the passing of the years and the declining number of veterans, the nation still feels strongly about Remembrance

[twiglet4frog]

in answer to how many rember and observe the silence, not sure  where u are from but here everyone remembers it and very very few ignore it, the whole city grinds to a halt

[Clanad]

In the US, Veteran's Day was once called Poppy Day by many since Poppies (not real ones) were sold for charity by the American Legion, much like what I decipher from the posts happens in the UK. I know the reason for the Poppies choice here has to do with the following:

In Flander's Fields"
By John McCrae
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.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[montyy]

try this: a little place called FLANDERS FIELDS! its where all the poppies grew after the end of the first world war. this now represents the soldiers who have died in the two world wars and the new terrorism-related deaths are now included in this section.

[Midgardrelm]

interestingly if you remember the poppies used to have HAIG on the black bit in the middle. this was after Field Marshal Haig the C-I-C of the British Expedditionary Forse and the British Army in WW1. After such horrors of the Somme and Ypres, Haig set up the poppy appeal to help families of those lost in the Great War as a way of making it up to every one for wiping out whole communities of their menstock!