Fighting The Flab

November is the month in which Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day) falls. It is on the 11^th day of the 11^th month, this date marked the official end of the 1^st World War with the Germans signing the Armistice at the 11^th hour (or 11am). It is at this time that commonwealth (and many non-commonwealth countries) recognise a 1 or 2 minute silence to remember all of the people who have fought and died for there country from the 1^st world war onwards.




The use of the poppy was inspired by the World War I poem "In Flanders Fields". Its opening lines refer to the many poppies that were the first flowers to grow in the churned-up earth of soldiers' graves in Flanders, a region of Europe that overlies parts of Belgium and France. Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae is popularly believed to have written it on 3 May 1915 after witnessing the death of his friend (a fellow soldier) the day before. The poem was first published on 8 December 1915 in the London-based magazine Punch.

In 1918, American YWCA worker Moina Michael, inspired by the poem, published a poem of her own called "We Shall Keep the Faith". In tribute to McCrae's poem, she vowed to always wear a red poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who served in the war. At a November 1918 YWCA Overseas War Secretaries' conference, she appeared with a silk poppy pinned to her coat and distributed 25 more to those attending. She then campaigned to have the poppy adopted as a national symbol of remembrance. At a conference in 1920, the National American Legion adopted it as their official symbol of remembrance. At this conference, Frenchwoman Anna E. Guérin was inspired to introduce the artificial poppies commonly used today. In 1921 she sent her poppy sellers to London, where they were adopted by Field Marshal Douglas Haig, a founder of the Royal British Legion. It was also adopted by veterans' groups in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

In the United Kingdom, paper poppies are sold by The Royal British Legion (RBL) and Haig Fund. These are charities providing financial, social and emotional support to those who have served or who are currently serving in the British Armed Forces, and their dependants. They are sold on the streets by volunteers in the weeks before Remembrance Day.

In England, the poppies have two red petals, a green paper leaf and are mounted on a green plastic stem. The yearly selling of poppies is a major source of income for the RBL in the UK. The poppy has no fixed price; it is sold for a donation or the price may be suggested by the seller. The black plastic center of the poppy was marked "Haig Fund" until 1994 but are now marked "Poppy Appeal".

What most people don’t know is that a team of about 50 people—most of them disabled former British military personnel—work all year round to make millions of poppies at the Poppy Factory in Richmond.