In honour of Remembrance Day the defence students will be planting a Flanders poppy seed in our St.Michael's garden. You may also be receiving a seed the children will take home with them.  After the October holidays we will be starting a gardening group to make sure our poppies flourish.

During the First World War, red poppies were among the first plants to spring up in the devastated battlefields of northern France and Belgium. In soldiers folklore, the vivid red of the poppy came from the blood of their comrades soaking the ground. The sight of poppies on the battlefield at Ypres in 1915 moved Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae to write the poem “In Flanders Fields”. In English literature of the nineteenth century, poppies had symbolised sleep or a state of oblivion; in the literature of the First World War a new, more powerful symbolism was attached to the poppy – the sacrifice of shed blood.  

The red poppy flowers fragile appearance belies the plants resilience: All those tiny seeds can remain dormant for years until conditions are just right. Then, they'll germinate and form swaths of brilliant red blooms.

More information regarding St.Michael's Remembrance Day Ceremony will be available closer to the date.