THE POPPIES OF ENGLAND

Evening Star, Issue 21622, 18 January 1934, Page 2

THE POPPIES OF ENGLAND

There is romance behind the poppy everyone, wears on Armistice Day—the romance of grave hurts overcome and usefulness arising out of disablement (said a wrier' in tbe ‘Daily Telegraph ’). In a small brick factory overlooking the river at Richmond 3G3 seriously disabled ex-servicemen work all the year round making those poppies which have become the symbol of a nation’s grief. Men with one arm or one leg, men with both an arm and a leg missing, and men with no legs have been taught the art of making poppies and wearing them into wreaths of beautiful design. Forty million (lowers and 35,000 wreaths were'made in 1933, arid 330,000 sellers volunteered thejr services. So important is this work of making poppies, with its employment of so many disabled men, that the organisers of the Earl Haig Appeal Fund regard it as equal in importance to the money raised by tbe sale of Dowers. When the factory was started eleven years ago in Bermondsey, five men worked in two small rooms, lint after two or three years the public demand grew to sueh an extent that a factory had to he hnilt at Richmond. Last yeai after the warehouse at King’s Cross caught fire, the hundred extra men engaged to replace the damaged poppies were kept on. Resides making

the poppies these men manufacture the trays from which they are sold and the boxes for dispatching. The writer says; “ I visited the.apnea! fund showrooms in South street, Mayfair, and as I looked at the cun-uinglv-madc poppies and the intricate wreaths which covered the walls, C found it hard to believe that such exquisite workmanship could come irom men whose average disability is i i per cent. Although poppies are the predomineut feature of every design, great efforts have been made to achieve variety with the use of leaves and corn and the gilding and silvering of laurels People all over the country have sent leaves to the factory, whore they arc preserved by a special process and woven into many forms. This year a poppy was sold with -a suction cap which could bo fastened beside the names on small memorials in offices and factories. This poppy boro the war service ribbon and a card on which could be written the dead soldier’s name. Another, made to fit on car radiators, was sold by garages and motor showrooms all over the country.” A group of men were employed at the factory in making the wreaths which the King and Prince of Wales placed on the Cenotaph on Armistice Day. This is regarded as a groat privilege. and infinite pains arc taken in the weaving of the giant poppies ,and laurel leaves which go to make the? Roval wreaths. The Vicld of Remembrance a I Westminster Abbey had so caught the public imagination that, in response to manv demands, similar fields wore to bo laid out this year in many parts of the country.