POPPY DAY ON FRIDAY

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22072, 21 April 1937, Page 9

POPPY DAY ON FRIDAY

* —_ OBJECTIVE OF £I6OO SET { STREET APPEAL TO HELP SOLDIERS Hopes are held by the Christchurch, Returned Soldiers* Association of collecting £I6OO for the relief of distress among returned soldiers and their dependants during the annual Poppy Day appeal next Friday. The association has for sale in the city some 35,000 poppies, made locally by. returned disabled men, and these will be sold to the public at Is each. Full arrangements have been made for covering every section of the city and poppies will be on sale in the streets .from an early hour. Last year the appeal raised more than its objective—£lsoo—and this year the association has set its aim £IOO higher. Poppy Day has a romantic origin. In 1921 an Englishwoman whose son had been killed in the Great War was visiting battlefields in France when she was impressed by the large number of poppies being offered for sale as souvenirs by the peasants. The poppy grows wild in Flanders, and every, battlefield has a profuse. crop. The suggestion was made'.to Earl Haig that the manufacture of red poppies might prove suitable work for disabled returned men, and that money might be raised from the sale of the poppies. The first organised appeal was made on November 11, 1921, in England, and just before Anzac Day in New. Zealand in the same year. Manufacture In City The New Zealand observance was continued with imported poppies for some years; but in 1931 it was decided to manufacture them in Christchurch. Some disabled men are kept going most of the year at the work, which, by the nature of their injuries, is about tLj only thing they can do. The actual manufacture is done in the men's homes. All the money received on Poppy Day is spent on assisting returned men. Numerous organisations assist in the’ conduct of the Poppy Day appeal, and the sellers on Friday will include many persons who have been actively-asso-ciated with Poppy Day appeals for many years.' Suburban committees of the association take a big part in the ‘appeal, and valuable assistance has in the past been , given by senior pupils of many of the schools. There are many calls for help made on the Returned Soldiers’ Association. Unemployed returned men are registered with the and there is an increasing 'number of calls from soldiers’ widows in need of help.