FREE!
north EDITION
Your English Newspaper
Issue 627
21 - 27 OCT 2011
90th Anniversary Poppy Appeal by Jack Troughton
Benidorm is buzzing! BENIDORM PRIDE 2011 has arrived with thousands of visitors streaming into the city for a spectacular three day event starting tonight (Friday). Continued on page 12
THE ROYAL British Legion’s 2011 Poppy Appeal in Spain was officially launched on Tuesday with the public urged to help “smash” last year’s record 107,000€ collection. Officers of the Legion’s District North Spain – which covers an area larger than UK from the French border to Andalusia – and has 21 branches, gathered in Javea for a call to arms. This year’s appeal, made in the Legion’s 90th year, is especially important as veterans of modern conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan need the support of an organisation founded in 1921 after the Great War. Guests at the launch, which included Javea’s Mayor Jose Chulvi and members of his team, watched a poignant promotional film showing Prince Harry in the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey, Royal Wootton Bassett, where the population lined the street to honour the bodies of servicemen returning home; and veterans strapping on artificial limbs. Also flashed onto the screen were simple messages, alongside the images of serving soldiers, saying: “It only takes a second to put on
a poppy” and “It’s not painful to put on a poppy.” District Chairman Chris Wyatt said Legion meetings started with the reading of the eulogy which honoured the fallen and ended: “We will remember them.” He said: “We are lucky because we got to go home and there are a lot that didn’t. There are a lot who wish they could go home but cannot because they are in hospital recovering from injuries, mental and physical, they received.” VETERANS He said the Legion tried to help those veterans and their families and the job of Legion members was to get the Poppy Appeal going and again raising “a tremendous sum of money.” He added: “If we do this we can be certain in our hearts we are helping all those soldiers, sailors and airmen and women and their families.” It was first mooted poppies would be used to remember the dead of World War One shortly after the Armistice in November 1918 – and Britain still comes to a halt at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month every year. Continued on page 3