British style poppy for November 11.

[Mike_Oettle]

Years ago an army friend of mine had a part in a musical called Oh, What A Lovely War. He would sing songs from it in camp, and the one that always bought tears to my eyes was one called Far, far from Wipers (I recall it as Far Away from Wipers). It goes:

Far, far from Wipers I long to be.
Where German snipers can't get at me.
Dark is my dugout, cold are my feet.
Waiting for Whizzbangs to send me to sleep.

A footnote explains that Wipers is Ypres. This is the French spelling of the name. The town is in fact in Flanders, and its actual name is Ieper.
Regards,
Mike

[Lallans]

Cavscout's link is useful if you want lots of the metal lapel pins but if you just want the one this link is useful Same store, different page.

Interesting to note that these metal poppy badges with the leaf at 11 o'clock are sold for individual purchase only and the ones with the leaf at 1 o'clock are sold for bulk orders only.

I have one of each and bought my 1 o'clock variant at a CWWG memorial in France (36 Ulster Div). The Poppy seller at my local Sainsbury's this year suggested I was wearing a fake because the leaf wasn't at 11 and showed me that all of his were the same. I politely referred him to the poppy-shop website (I am a Royal British Legion member too so I wouldn't wear a fake.)

The poppy appeal do get more back from sales of the 11 o'clock poppies but if you want masses for distribution amongst your mates then the 1 o'clock is probably the way to go. Don't worry, they are both legal and have the added bonus you can wear them all year round (as many people in UK are doing now).

Good luck in your quest for paper poppies. Have a browse around the poppy-shop site, there's loads of good stuff to be had. Check out the umbrellas.

Thanks for the lore, and also for the link. That may be the slowest-to-load website I've had since the days of dial up. But I will persevere- a pin would be a long-term solution to my annual problem.

Canadian poppies are excellent BTW and the charity is a particularly outstanding one- but on the 11th I wear both styles if possible.

[English Bloke]

No disrespect intended to the Royal Canadian Legion or anybody else's veteran charities. They all do a valuable service in providing support where there would otherwise be none. Sterling stuff indeed.

Incidentally.


Standing at the the headstone of my Great Great Uncle Sydney. Killed in Sept 1917 during the battle of Passchendaele (third battle of Ypres). He's buried in Tyne Cot CWGC cemetary. He left Yorkshire in his teens and emigrated to Australia, enlisting into the 1st AIF in Jan 1915. He was wounded at Gallipoli and again wounded in France and Convalesced in No.2 Command Depot Weymouth, Dorset on both occasions before meeting his untimely end in Belgium with the 5th Australian Division. Brave bloke. Braver than me anyroad!

[Lallans]

People from all over are generously PM-ing me with offers to send poppies. However, I panicked yesterday and got on the phone and now have some on the way from the UK, so once again thanks to everyone. Now all that has to happen is for the Royal Mail and Canada Post to do their part and....

ohhhh nooooo! Canada Post? What was I thinking?

[Pleater]

My grandson, 15 months old, has found out that the paper poppies can be disassembled if you run off with Nana's hat and find a quiet corner in which to work on the pretty thing undisturbed for a few minutes....

He must be going to follow in the family tradition of engineering - he got it apart without doing damage to it.

Fear not Canuck - recently I Air Mailed a beret to Canada and it arrived in just four days, posted on Monday and there on Thursday.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Lallans]

My grandson, 15 months old, has found out that the paper poppies can be disassembled if you run off with Nana's hat and find a quiet corner in which to work on the pretty thing undisturbed for a few minutes....

He must be going to follow in the family tradition of engineering - he got it apart without doing damage to it.

Fear not Canuck - recently I Air Mailed a beret to Canada and it arrived in just four days, posted on Monday and there on Thursday.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

Good to know Anne. I told them to leave the straight pin out so that the poppy won't trip some magnetometer or xray alert. I'll hopefully have it in time.

Perhaps I'll have this one encased in lucite or something, and make a pin out of it.

[Drac]

Thanks for bringing this up. It reminded me to contact our local American Legion to get some for November 11th. They managed to spare 50 for our ceremony.

Jim

[ohiopiper]

This tradition, growing out of The Great War, leads me to think of the Second World War and what P.M. Winston Chruchill said.

"Never have so many owed so much to so few."

Proud to have left my meager footprint on a path that stretches from my bootprint in the desert, to the jungles of Asia, trenches and No Mans' Land of europe, back to some point in history when free men stood and said "ENOUGH".

We do well to honor and remember them.

Want to make a veterans' day? Look him in the eye, shake his hand and say "Welcome Home". Sadly, for some, it will be the first time they've heard those words.

[Pleater]

When visiting some of our towns and cities if you understand what you are looking at you can often see the effects of bombs and rockets on the urban landscape.

Things such as rows of houses with a sudden gap, sometimes on both sides of the street, where 1940s or 50s houses have been built to fill in the damage. The bombs were usually dropped in 'sticks' of six, so using the virtual mappings available you can sometimes tour an area and pick out the line of gaps in the original buildings.

The V1s and V2s were more destructive and resulted in approximate circles of rebuilding around the point of impact.

Of course some places were so badly affected that whole areas were cleared away and all new houses built. Some were covered in prefabricated houses - they were meant to be a temporary measure until 'real' houses could be built, but such was the need for housing that they were kept long after their planned lifespan. I can remember 'prefabs' in the 1960s. Many newly weds after the war moved into a prefab then into a larger house and then back into a prefab when the kids left home. Some moved in and never moved out again.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Lallans]

When visiting some of our towns and cities if you understand what you are looking at you can often see the effects of bombs and rockets on the urban landscape.

Things such as rows of houses with a sudden gap, sometimes on both sides of the street, where 1940s or 50s houses have been built to fill in the damage. The bombs were usually dropped in 'sticks' of six, so using the virtual mappings available you can sometimes tour an area and pick out the line of gaps in the original buildings.

The V1s and V2s were more destructive and resulted in approximate circles of rebuilding around the point of impact.

Of course some places were so badly affected that whole areas were cleared away and all new houses built. Some were covered in prefabricated houses - they were meant to be a temporary measure until 'real' houses could be built, but such was the need for housing that they were kept long after their planned lifespan. I can remember 'prefabs' in the 1960s. Many newly weds after the war moved into a prefab then into a larger house and then back into a prefab when the kids left home. Some moved in and never moved out again.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

I believe it was Prince Charles that made the remarks about how the luftwaffe had merely left piles of rubble and it was the British social housing authorities themselves who had really uglified those areas?