![]() ![]() The Poppy Factory was always about giving former military people a step-up into working civilian life. "It signifies the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month."īut poppy making is only half the story. "The leaf should point at 11 o' clock," says David Beaumont, a factory guide. You do it with your 'wrong' hand - to replicate how it might be for someone with a disability. You needn't be a royal to make your own poppy everyone on the tour gets the opportunity. Wreaths laid by the royals on Remembrance occasions hang on the walls nearby the Queen's own wreath - always studded with 93 flowers, although no one knows why - will be retired when she is no longer monarch. The royals are frequent visitors to the factory a narrow corridor is hung with photos of the Queen Mother, Princess Alexandra, and Camilla, who is a patron. The Queen visits the factory in 1962 Wreaths made for George V and Queen Mary ![]() The Queen originally took it home with her - they had to politely ask for it back. Her poppy, emblazoned with 'ER', sits on display in a case. She didn't want to botch it up in front of the workers. Ahead of coming, she requested a poppy block from them, which she could practise on at the palace. Ward was one of the employees who met the Queen, last time she visited the factory, in 2012. "The best bit is getting to work with people," he says. He's worked at the factory for 28 years, and still loves his work. We meet Stephen Ward, crimping polyester poppies. Each box is labelled with the name of the person who made the wreath - the kind of personal touch you might expect from a factory that's powered as much off goodwill, as it is targets. Nearby, pizza box-shaped containers with wreaths inside, roll off the production line, and are stacked in the warehouse (the warehouse is small, and many of these boxes will go to the larger facility in Kent). A giant poppy, made in 1952 Workers in the factory during the 1970s ![]() The leftover paper is often given to visiting school children to use as bunting in their classrooms. Each box bears the name of the person who made the wreathĭespite being in action almost 100 years, the factory retains almost a cottage industry feel the reels and reels of scarlet paper and polyester used to make the iconic brooches are cut on decades-old machinery, usually by one person at a time. Stack of wreaths waiting to be shipped out. The Poppy Factory has helped him to overcome his PTSD, and given him a new outlook on life. Every wreath he makes, he says, is something he's proud of - and that's something you can see in his face. Quite something, given that they're assembled largely by hand, by a small group of workers.Īlex Conway, a British army and French foreign legion soldier, works away on a wreath. #Who makes the remembrance poppy plusNot all Remembrance poppies are made in Richmond - there's a far bigger facility in Aylesford, and another setup in Scotland - but six million are, plus another one million wooden crosses (many of which appear in Westminster Abbey's Field of Remembrance), and 150,000 wreaths. Reel upon reel of scarlet paper is cut into poppies And next door, the green for the leaves Some 36 million poppies are sold each year, the Poppy Appeal raising £1 every second since first world war. Poppy-making isn't something you consider to be a year-round project, but the demand is there - recently heightened, in fact, by centenary commemorations. Stephen Ward has worked at the factory almost 30 years Crimping polyester poppies Today, a handful of the 30 staff live in these - the rest are rented out at commercial rates, bringing in around half the annual income needed by the factory to carry out its good work. Howson built dozens of flats on the site for employees to live in. ![]() Initially set up on the Old Kent Road, the factory upped sticks to west London on 1 January 1925, by this time employing some 300 former servicemen. It was perhaps the undersell of the century. I do not think it can be a great success but it is worth trying. If the experiment is successful, it will be the start of an industry to employ 150 disabled men. I have been given a cheque for £2,000 to make poppies with it is a large responsibility and will be very difficult. In a letter to his parents in 1922 - once Anna Guérin had persuaded Earl Haig to fund the project - Major George Howson wrote: The Poppy Factory - nestled in a an old Watneys brewery on the salubrious banks of the Thames in Richmond - was, however, established by a Brit. Wreaths made in the factory in 1929 A giant wreath is made at the factory in 1945 ![]()
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