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Where does the Red Poppy Symbol come from?
During the First World War, as the countryside turned into battlefields, being shelled, and fought over, the affected areas turned into fields of mud where little or nothing could grow. Out of this devastation, the delicate but resilient bright red Flanders poppies unexpectedly grew and flourished in their thousands. Millions of Soldiers saw the poppies in Flanders fields on the Western Front. Soldiers even sent pressed poppies home in letters.
Shortly after losing a friend in Ypres in 1915, a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, inspired by the sight of these poppies growing in battle-scarred fields wrote his now famous poem 'In Flanders Fields'.
The poem then inspired American War Secretary Moina Michael, who bought poppies to sell to her friends to raise money for Servicemen in need after the First World War.
Though the concept of wearing poppies derived from the poem, where the small red flowers described as one of the first signs of life after death, each country has tailored a unique design, and so poppies differ from country to country.
The Royal British Legion adopted the poppy as a symbol of remembrance in 1921, several other countries followed suit including Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. The poppy has been adopted as a symbol of Remembrance ever since and continues to be sold worldwide to raise money and to remember those who lost their lives in military conflicts.
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