I Just Take Pictures

Rememberance Sunday is here in the UK is the closest Sunday to 11 November. This years it is the actual day. In most towns and cities veterans will march and lay wreaths of poppies in rememberance on our war memorials. London hosts the largest and main parade of rememberance with leaders of the government, the Royal family and representatives of the commonwealth nations laying their wreaths at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in London, it was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument. The Cenotaph in Victoria Park in London Ontario looks very similar.

The rememberance Poppy has been used since 1920 to commemorate soldiers who have died in war. The use of the poppy was inspired by the World War I poem 'In The Fields of Flanders' Its opening refer to the poppies that were the first flowers to grow in the earth of soldiers' graves in Flanders after the battles.

In 1918 Moina Michael who worked for the YWCA vowed to wear a red poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who served in the war. She then campaigned to have the poppy adopted as a national symbol of remembrance in the USA. In 1921 she sent her poppy sellers to London, where they were adopted by Field Marshal Douglas Haig who was a founder of the Royal British Legion. It was also adopted in the British Commonwealth countries Australia, Canada and New Zealand whose own soldiers also fought alongside the British in the trenches.

Today, the Haig Fund support veterans from all conflicts and other military actions involving British Armed Forces up to today. Its members sell remembrance poppies in the weeks before Remembrance Day/Armistice Day.

Buy a poppy and wear it with pride and rememberance