An oversight not to have included this yesterday. I wrote in an earlier post how I had spent some time with W.H. Auden. His words resonate of a moment in time.
Category: november 11
11 11 11
POPPYS on the 11th of november have always had strong meaning for me. During much of my adult life I ended up in England or France for this day. I often attended the service in the Guards Chapel listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury speak. I was an interloper, as the others in the chapel on this day were members of families who had lost a son or father to the wars. A most moving moment.
Graphic of the day: How poppies symbolise Remembrance Day
On November 11, wearing poppies and laying wreaths, we remember the members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty since the First World War
By Stefan Bayley
6:00AM GMT 11 Nov 2011
Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day) is a memorial day to remember the members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty since the First World War.
Hostilities formally ended “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” of 1918 so Remembrance Day is observed on November 11.
The remembrance poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem In Flanders Fields, believed to have been written by Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.
Poppies were the first flowers to grow in the earth of the soldiers’ graves in Flanders and so they became an appropriate symbol for Remembrance Day.
The first person to wear a poppy was American Moina Michael who wrote a poem vowing to always wear a poppy as a symbol of remembrance after reading In Flanders Fields. Her campaign to have the poppy adopted as a national symbol kicked off in 1921 when poppy sellers were sent to London.