You may have worn a remembrance poppy on or around Remembrance Day or Veterans Day – November 11th.
The little red poppy is specifically worn in remembrance of the end of WW1. Hostilities ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 when representatives of Germany and Entente signed the armistice early that morning. There is a specific protocol on how it should be worn that has gradually slipped away over the past 106 years.
It should be worn on the left side (over the heart). Its red color represents the blood of all those who gave their lives, the black represents the mourning of those who didn’t have their loved ones return home, and the green leaf represents the grass and crops growing and the hope of a future prosperity after the war. The leaf should be positioned at 11 o’clock to represent the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the time that World War I formally ended.
The idea for this memorial came from a French war widow, Madame Anna Guerin, who inspired the poem written by Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae in 1915 – Flanders Fields.
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.
Photo Credit: Imperial War Museums
