Remembrance Day: A Time To Remember

Every year in November, Britain becomes an island of red poppies. Across the country, millions of poppies are displayed in people’s homes, workplaces and on their clothing. It is not a surprise that Remembrance Day, 11 November, is commonly known as Poppy Day. The idea came at the end of the First World War in 1918. The public wanted to help ex-servicemen and women and to remember those who died fighting for their country.

Two women, Moina Bell Michael, an American teacher, and Madame Guerin, a French national, were inspired by a popular war poem and began selling paper poppies to raise funds. The British Legion was founded in 1921 and adopted the red poppy as its logo. It organised the country’s first Remembrance Day that year: on the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. The red poppy quickly became a universal symbol of remembrance.

Remembrance Day in Great Britain

Silence

Today, the Royal British Legion campaigns and provides welfare for members of the armed forces and their families. It organises the annual Poppy Appeal in the two weeks up to 11 November and has become the national custodian of remembrance. “We are responsible for the Two-Minute Silence on Remembrance Sunday and 11 November, bringing remembrance into the national calendar,” says Adrienne Wakeling of the Royal British Legion. “It’s a time when the nation stands together. Whether they’re in the supermarket, the office, or their own kitchen, it gives everybody a chance to reflect on the sacrifices made on their behalf since World War One.”

In Flanders Fields

If you visit Britain in late October and early November, you will notice that a lot of people are wearing red poppies. This is in preparation for Remembrance Sunday, the day when the country remembers 
those who have died in fighting since the First World War.

The tradition was started by a charity organisation called the Royal British Legion 90 years ago and it 
is now used  to commemorate all wars. But why the poppy? We asked Adrienne Wakeling, who is County Manager for the Royal British Legion in Suffolk:

Adrienne Wakeling: Well, that started from a poem from the First World War, written by a doctor, a Canadian gentleman, Dr John McCrae. He wrote a poem called In Flanders Fields and he was working in a field hospital9 in Flanders, in Belgium, during the First World War. So they were burying a lot of people, but the poppies kept coming, despite the disturbance that was happening around, with trenches being dug, mortars being fired, and bodies being buried, poppies somehow kept resurfacing. And I think it was the idea that perhaps a symbol of life going on, despite (the) sacrifices that have been made.

This is McCrae’s poem: 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we 
lie, In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies 
grow In Flanders fields.

Charity

In addition to helping people remember the dead, the poppies have another purpose: they raise money for wounded servicemen and women, as Adrienne Wakeling explains:

Adrienne Wakeling:  All the poppies are made here. Most of them are made at a factory in Richmond which employs disabled ex-servicemen, and they make up the individual poppies, the little paper ones that people buy, and they also make up the wreaths that we have made for every organisation. I mean, this year we’re aiming to raise £40 million. Last year we raised £36 million, which for a two-week period 
is pretty good going!

Speak Up Explains!

We are responsible for the Two-Minute Silence: To be responsible. Cuando queremos decir que somos responsables de algo, de un acontecimiento por ejemplo, empleamos el verbo to be responsible for seguido del complemento, o bien de un verbo terminado en '-ing': "We are responsible for introducing Poppy Day" (somos los responsables de haber creado el ‘Poppy Day’). ¡Atención! En castellano también se suele emplear la palabra ‘responsable’ como sustantivo para indicar a la persona encargada de algo determinado. El equivalente en inglés se construye con el adjetivo y el verbo to be: "I am responsible for production."

They also make up the wreaths that we have made for every organisation: aquí hay dos empleos distintos del verbo make. To make up es un phrasal verb con múltiples significados: ‘inventar’, ‘crear’, ‘preparar’, ‘decidir’. (Preparan también las coronas…). En cambio, "to have something made" es una forma pasiva impersonal que se emplea para pedirle a alguien que haga algo para nosotros: (... que hacemos hacer para todas las organizaciones).