Why Poppies?

My grandfather fought in the First World War. Like Baldrick, he was a batman, but more intelligent and certainly a better cook, although lacking the cunning plans!

He was invalided out following a shrapnel injury and it remains a great source of sadness to me that he never wanted to speak of his time in the trenches.

Although I went to the Remembrance Services each year with him, it was only as I got older that I really began to appreciate the depth of the suffering that these men (and the women who volunteered as nurses, drivers and other support roles) really went through. It was not only the threat from the German guns, but the deprivation, the hunger, the cold and the wet; and the grief as their friends and comrades literally died in their arms. In a time before we understood the unseen mental damage that warfare inflicts, the brave survivors were expected to return to civilian life once the war was over, almost as if nothing had happened. It is really no surprise that my grandfather chose not to remember this time in his life.

Although for most of my life he was quite a distant and somewhat intimidating figure, poppies are a poignant reminder of his softer and more emotional side. In the spring this rather gruff man would get quite upset over the sight of a cornfield with a swathe of red running through it; and poppies in my back garden could move him to tears.

That we use poppies as a symbol of remembrance is thanks to Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. He was a Canadian doctor, who after burying a friend noticed that the red poppies were the only plant to flourish in the mud and destruction of trench warfare. He was moved to write the now famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields’. Through two women, Moina Michael and Anna Guèrin, it came to the attention of Earl Haig, founder of the Royal British Legion. Poppies were sold for the first time in 1921, raising £104,000 to support veterans find houses and jobs.

In Flanders 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.

If you wish to donate to this years poppy appeal visit www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/waysto-give/donate

Remembrance Sunday

There will be an online service at 10am on Sunday 8th November with contributions from local schools, parish councils and others in our village communities. Restrictions permitting, there will be a 9.30am Holy Communion service at St Peter’s Walton and then a sociallydistanced act of remembrance on the memorial on the green at Thorp Arch as usual. To join in the online service, go to facebook.com/ bramhambenefice at 10am on Sunday 8th, or look on the Online Services page of www. bramhambenefice.org