The Story Of The Poppy

The soldiers were courageous

But in battle they did yield

And John McCrea, he lost a friend

On Ypres fighting field

He wrote Flanders Fields for him

His soul he laid out bare

He wrote about the poppy fields

For every soldier there

The slender graceful poppy

Sprouted where they lay

So that we would think of them

Every Remembrance Day

They grew in their thousands

And proudly there they stand

This hardy little flower

Grows on barren land

American lady, Moira Michael

Made poppies of silk to sell

And Anna Guerin, brought them to England

And boy, did they sell well!

It was The Royal British Legion

Who sold nine million poppies on

Remembrance Day

Back in nineteen twenty one

Over one hundred thousand pounds

That first appeal did raise

Which helped the Great War veterans

In those very early days

The Legion, along with Major George

Houston’s factory line

To this day, produce nine million

poppies, every year combined.

Scotland wanted poppies too

But England’s were all gone

Lady Haig set a factory up

So Edinburgh had one

A story of a little flower

A symbol of life and not of death

Its beauty blooms to give us hope

And help us never to forget