The veneration is not just a Commonwealth habit. The wearing of
silk poppies on Veterans Day (aka Armistice Day) was common in my
area of the Southern USA when I was a youth.
A 100,000 dead in a single battle--approaching the inconceivable.
Ken
Christopher D. Green wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I could swear that while growing up on the Caribbean Island of
St.Lucia,we had a holiday called Poppy Day and we actually sold
poppies. Obviously,it must have been a British thing.Is this same as
Armistice day or Veterans day as celebrated today in the U.S? And why
a poppy flower? Anything to do with opium?
Poppies are the primary symbol of Remembrance Day (Nov 11) as it is
known in Canada. The reason has to do with a Canadian
soldier-doctor-poet John McCrae who wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields"
in honor of the dead at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915 (see
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm for the poems full text).
In this battle, at which the Germans introduced mustard gas into their
arsenal, about 100,000 men were killed on both sides. McCrae was died of
pneumonia in 1918, before the end of the war.
Regards,
Christopher "Hippocampus" Green
York U.
Toronto
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Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Professor
Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
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