Royal British Legion

The Royal British Legion is the UK's leading Charity safeguarding the welfare, interests & memories of those who have served in the armed forces and their dependents. It provides finacial, social and emotional support to millions and it's benevolance spans all age groups from the oldest to the very young.Almost 15 million people (at least a quarter of the UK population) are eligable for help from the Royal British Legion. In 2002, they spent over 40 million pounds on welfare services and relieving distress. The Legion is there to help and give support to all at every level.Many of the services they provide include - advice about benefits, assisting serving men and women in their return to civilian life, helping dependents and relieving hardship including raising and distributing money for these purposes. The Poppy Appeal on the 11th November raises around 21 million pounds alone. The rest comes from sponsership, corporate donations, legacies, trading and direct mail shots.

The British Legion - now The Royal British Legion was formed in 1921 to give practical help and companionship to ex-Service people and their dependants. Nowadays they have recently set up 'The UK Forces Gulf Fund' in response to increasing demand to channel donations from you, the public to those members of the UK Armed Forces, dependants and attached civilians, involved with the last two gulf conflicts. In 1918, on the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month, the First World War ended. Thousands had died; thousands more were injured and scarred by their experiences. The men and women who survived returned to their homes. For them though, the world would never be the same.

During the first world war, areas in Northern France and Belgium called Flanders and Picardy saw some of the most concentrated fighting of the whole war. There was complete catastophic devastation. Buildings, roads, trees and even the very natural life of these areas simply disappeared. Where there was once homes and farms there was now just a sea of mud. But still the Poppy flowered every year with the coming of the warmer weather and brought life, hope, colour and reassurance to an otherwise devastated place. Doctor John McCrae, serving with the Canadian Armed Forces, saw this incredible vision and was so over come with emotion that in 1915, he jotted down in his pocket book the following verses:

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 filing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If we break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' fields.

Dr McCrae's poem was eventually published in Punch and people all around the world began to realise just how bad the war in France had been and the horros that were seen in the trenches. But 1918, John McCrae died in a military hospital on the coast of Northern France. Before he died it was said that he murmured this insightful passage, 'Tell them this, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep.'

To find out how you can help donate to The Royal British Legion, click here.