How the poppy became a symbol of remembrance, explained by the Royal British Legion at the launch of the East Preston Yarnbombers' giant poppy cascade

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How the poppy became a symbol of remembrance, explained by the Royal British Legion at the launch of the East Preston Yarnbombers, giant poppy cascade

Transcript

00:00During the second battle of East, a Canadian medic was working at a gas-threatening station,

00:07which was full of wounded.

00:10He suddenly noticed a good friend had been threatened in,

00:13that there was no room in the concrete bunker.

00:16So he tended in to him as he could, and said,

00:20I will be back to you when there's room.

00:23A short while later, there was an explosion outside,

00:27and when he went out, he found his friend was dead.

00:31Later on, when he went to his funeral,

00:35he noticed how the coffins grew around the grave,

00:39and this moved him greatly.

00:42And that night, he wrote the poem in Flanders Field.

00:46But apparently, he didn't like it, he discarded the poem,

00:50but a friend, a fellow medic, picked it up,

00:53and it was then made to publish in the Punch magazine in December 1915.

01:01Sadly, John McLean died of pneumonia in 1918.

01:07We never got to see the effect of that copy,

01:11which has now been going over a hundred years.

01:14John will read you the poem.

01:18In Flanders Fields, the poppies flow,

01:23Between the crosses, row and row,

01:27That mark our place, and in the sky,

01:30The loft, still gravely, still in flight,

01:33Stares her amidst the gullies below.

01:37We are the day, short days ago,

01:41We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

01:45Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

01:48In Flanders Fields.

01:51Take up our quarrel with the poem,

01:55To you from failing hands we throw,

01:58The torch be yours to hold it high,

02:02If ye break faith with us to die,

02:05We shall not sleep, though poppies grow,

02:09In Flanders Fields.

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