11 november, a day of remembrance

Here in France we have a bank holiday today,  commemorating 'le 11 novembre' 1918 and the signing of the armistice at the end of the first world war.

In every town and village all over the country there is a monument, big or small, engraved with the names of the young men from that village who lost their lives.  And today, in front of each of those monuments, a few people will gather, pay their respects and lay wreaths.

The bloodiest battle grounds in France were in the North, across fields and countryside where poppies have always grown in the summer.  

The poppy has come to represent this memorial day.  In the UK millions of people will wear the traditional paper poppy on their lapel, or attach poppy to a cross in the fields of remembrance outside Westminster Abbey.   The money they pay for the poppy goes to a fund to support veteran soldiers.

So today I simply leave you with this beautiful poem, written by the Canadian soldier,  Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae MD.  In 1915 he was serving as a field surgeon on the bloody fields of Flanders, and after burying his closest friend, exhausted by weeks of the most appalling conditions, he sat down and wrote about the poppies he could see growing up through the mud of the battlefields around him.

In Flanders Fields  

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.