Poppy

The remembrance poppy

The red poppy's best-known meaning today began in the First World War. The Royal British Legion tells the story: on the battlefields of France and Belgium the churning of the ground by shellfire brought poppy seeds to the surface, and poppies covered the ruined land. In May 1915 the Canadian doctor John McCrae wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields", published in Punch that December. In 1918 the American academic Moina Michael answered it with a poem of her own and campaigned for the poppy as a symbol of remembrance; the Canadian War Museum records that she petitioned the American Legion to adopt it in 1920. In 1921 the Frenchwoman Anna Guérin, who sold poppies made by French women to help children in the devastated regions of France, persuaded the new British Legion and the Canadian veterans' association to take up the poppy. The Legion founded its own Poppy Factory in 1922; the poppies made in Scotland have four petals and no leaf.

For the Royal British Legion today the red poppy remembers the sacrifices of those who served, shows support for the armed forces community and stands for hope for a peaceful future. Wearing one, the Legion says, is a personal choice.