It is Remembrance Sunday today, a fittingly grey and gloomy Sunday. I have not much to say about it, except that I will try this year to keep my poppy on, although I always struggle. I said yesterday that November here is the month of fireworks, but it is not quite true: it truly is the month of the poppy. They are everywhere: in shops, in the street where they are sold by army cadets or veterans and of course on the everybody's coat or shirt. For a while at least, because I am not the only one struggling to keep the poppy on, apparently. Back in 2008, I blogged about In Flanders Fields, the poem by John McCrae which inspired the tradition of paper poppies. Today, I have decided to share a short documentary video made by The Royal British Legion telling the story of the tradition. Since I cannot keep a poppy on due to a hand full of thumbs, I can at least do this much to commemorate and remember.
My remembrance day post is going to focus on this poem too. 2015 is the centenary of its writing.
ReplyDeleteI think we can all be forgiven if we can't keep our poppies on today, or the rest of the week. I have just been gifted a lovely, hand made fabric pin, which I shall wear but have already donated so don't feel too badly about not wearing the disintegrating paper poppy. I donate more if I am wearing my own poppy than if I just have a paper poppy.
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