Wednesday, December 14, 2005

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Britain's remembrance poppies have gone high-tech, as digital versions of the red paper flowers are now available for downloading to mobiles.The poppies' move into cyberspace is a bid to get younger Britons aware of the sacrifices made by those who fell in battle, the Royal British Legion charity said."This is the first time the poppy can be downloaded to mobile telephones," a spokesman said. "The Poppy is about remembering those who did not come back."The digital image can be accessed via www.poppy.org.This year's Poppy Appeal has been fronted by an Iraq war widow and her young daughter, a move designed to show the charitable work of the Legion will continue so long as Britain is engaged in military conflicts.The symbol was adopted in the 1920s after the end of World War One because the poppy, a wild flower, was the only plant that grew in the aftermath of the bloody trench warfare which devastated parts of northern France and Belgium.Millions remembered those who died in all Britain's wars with a two-minute silence at 1100 GMT on Friday and a service at the Cenotaph in central London on Sunday. The silence, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, marked the moment when the guns fell silent at the end of World War One in 1918.The first Legion Poppy Day was inspired by a 1915 poem written by John McCrae, a serving officer, which starts: "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, Scare heard amid the guns below."Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home