the poppies being offered around this time of year?

Question

does all the money go to the british legion or ddo they give a percentage to other nationals who fought alongside british troops

Answer 1

a similar collection campaign goes on in America, so I'd assume that your contributions go to your veterans.

Answer 2

You'll have to ask the Royal British Legion about this. My thinking is that all the money collected during the Flanders Poppy Appeal goes directly to the British Legion Charity which uses this money for the benefit of those whom it supports - the former service personnel of UK.

Someone asked in another question about support for the Gurkha's. There is a separate charity for this if any one wishes to donate : -

The Gurkha Welfare Trust - Established for the relief of poverty ...The Gurkha Welfare Trust - The Trust's remit is to provide financial, ... Registered Charity Number 1103669 Company Limited by Guarantee Number 5098581 ...
http://www.gwt.org.uk

The British Gurkha Welfare Society: Title : subtitle British Gurkha Welfare Society 119 Wren Way Farnborough Hants GU14 8TA Tel: .... Charity begins at home; we have the capability and must dip into it with ...
http://www.bgws.info/news.asp

You can go to the Royal British Legion at this site : -

The Royal British Legion - HomeThe Royal British Legion is a UK charity providing support to the serving and ex-Service community and their families. It is also one of the country's ...
http://www.britishlegion.org.uk

Answer 3

Here in Canada the poppies were first made in 1922. by disabled vetrans. Until 1996 they were made at Vetcraft in Toronto and Montreal. These were sheltered workshops run by Vetrans Affairs. The money provided a small source of income for disabled exservicemen and their dependants. It also gave them a meaningful way of taking part in Rememberance Day Services. Currently The Legion awards the contract to a private company and the proceeds go to help ex-servicemen and women and their dependants such as providing tombstones to vetrans who have passed on at no charge to the families. My Uncle's tombstone in the vetrans plot was paid for by the Legion.They offer other assistance as well wherever there is a branch of the Legion.

Answer 4

Most of the major countries that fought in the war have similar schemes and raise there own money, the RBL is for British servicemen and women although people from commonwealth countries are entitled to join British armed forces which makes them eligible.

Answer 5

The money is I believe held by the Royal British Legion (or Royal Scottish Legion if you are in Scotland) and is used to help Servicemen and Women (and their dependents) as it is needed but for more info I would suggest you look at these sites
http://www.poppy.org.uk/
http://www.poppyscotland.org.uk/
http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/

Answer 6

In this country it all goes to the British Legion. I think every country has something similar to support their war veterans.

Answer 7

It is organised by the British Legion – but you must be an ex-Serviceperson or a dependant. Anyone who has been in the British Armed Forced for seven days or more (and their dependants) is eligible for help.

Answer 8

Some of the funds are distributed to the West Indian Ex-Servicemen Association UK.

Answer 9

In the US I think the VFW and perhaps the American Legion use these to fund some of their charities in the US

Answer 10

all monies contributed go to the British Legion

Answer 11

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

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.

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.