Poppies: Fill & Download for Free

What is a way bigger deal in the United Kingdom than in the United States?The British are not especially keen on overt patriotism and the reverence of symbolism that seems to have become a part of American culture. However, one area where we are passionate is the use of poppies on Remembrance day.The traditional poppy is worn with its leaf at 11 o’clock to symbolise the end of WWI at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month.It’s unusual to see anyone in the public eye not sporting a poppy in the run up to Remembrance Day in November. Most people will wear one whatever their background and social status. There are even complaints about celebrities not wearing one, bearing in mind a strongly worded letter to the Times is the British equivalent to rioting.The poppies are seen on war memorials but also on buses and cars.A few years ago a huge art installation at the Tower of London had one poppy for each fallen soldier from WWI.It comes from the red symbol of the fallen soldiers in WWI, and was adopted as a symbol of grief, loss, and remembrance, taken from the poem by Canadian war poet John McCrae.In Flanders fieldsIn Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throwThe torch; be yours to hold it high.If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies growIn Flanders fields.The fact that most British consider the loss of the generation in that conflict along the lines of ‘Lions led by donkeys’, means that the symbol is about the people who died, not the politics of the war.The poppies are a registered trademark of the Royal British Legion, and sales of the 30 million or so made each year make up a major part of their income, which is used in the financial, emotional and social support of the members of the armed services and their families. The poppy is “worn to commemorate the sacrifices of our Armed Forces and to show support to those still serving today” (from the RBL website).UK charity for British Armed Forces, reservists, veterans and their familiesThe poppy has become somewhat controversial in recent years, with pacifists wearing white poppies, rather than the traditional red ones. That the poppies are seen to be without allegiance to one side is debated as only the victorious countries from WWI adopted them.Despite the fact that many muslims died fighting with the allies in WWI, the British alt far right has tried to anglicise the image and there are regular stories (mainly apocryphal) from them of muslims burning poppies, which creates an outrage similar to Americans express at the burning of the Stars and Stripes.The extent to which this actually happens is debated, but certainly the one thing that would rile many British people is the disrespect of the symbol of fallen troops.

Where I live near Cannock Chase, is the German Cemetery where most of the German POWs (and some Ukranians - another story) - who died in Britain during WW1 and WW2 are buried. Most moving to me are the four mass graves of Zeppelin crews from WW1. Every Remembrance Sunday the German Ambassador and his entourage come here, with Brits and Germans in attendance. Wreaths are placed around a memorial, poppies abound from all concerned. My poppy was placed for many years on the grave of a German soldier who turned out to be a long lost relative of a Mormon missionary I met. Poppies are not political. They remember all the slain from wherever they come from, whatever side they fought for. Lest we forget.

Others have given the history of the movement to make the poppy the symbol of the fallen, but nobody has yet explained *why*. Corn poppies - these chapsHow to Grow and Care for a Corn Poppy | World of Flowering Plants- like to grow on freshly disturbed ground. So they grow where the ground has been broken by the plough, or where it has been hammered by shells and trampled by men and horses and tanks. And they’re a common plant, so wherever there’s a major battlefield in Europe, the first wave of plants to grow back over it is full of these, and they look like blood.