THE garden at a Musselburgh kirk is adorned with about 2,000 poppies knitted with red wool to mark Remembrance Day.

The craft group at St Andrew’s High Church were supported by other church members to create the eye-catching annual display.

The sight is particularly poignant this year as the Royal British Legion marks its centenary.

Formed on May 15, 1921, it brought together four national organisations of ex-servicemen that had established themselves after the First World War, and the first ever Poppy Appeal was held.

According to the Royal British Legion website, during the First World previously beautiful landscapes turned to mud, bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could grow. There was a notable and striking exception to the bleakness: the bright red Flanders poppies. These resilient flowers flourished in the middle of so much chaos and destruction, growing in their thousands.

Shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, was moved by the sight of these poppies and that inspiration led him to write the now-famous poem In Flanders Fields.

The poem then inspired an American academic named Moina Michael to adopt the poppy in memory of those who had fallen in the war. She campaigned to get it adopted as an official symbol of Remembrance. Also involved with those efforts was a French woman, Anna Guérin, who was in the UK in 1921 where she planned to sell the poppies in London.

There she met Earl Haig, founder of the Royal British Legion, who was persuaded to adopt the poppy as its emblem in the UK.

The Royal British Legion ordered nine million poppies and sold them on November 11 that year.

In today’s Poppy Appeal, 40,000 volunteers distribute 40 million poppies.

The Rev Leslie Milton, minister at St Andrew’s High Church, said: “We have had a poppy display at St. Andrew’s High for quite a number of years now. It started when our craft group were knitting a few poppies to display in church and someone suggested ‘why don’t we see if we can knit enough to fill the grounds with poppies?’

“The group got help from other members of the church and in the end more than 2,000 were made, and we put them out every year at the beginning of November until after Remembrance Day.

“We are aware that this year coronavirus restrictions mean that the town’s Remembrance Sunday commemorations will be on a smaller scale than normal. We know the poppies are appreciated by so many people and give a focus for remembering and for prayer.

“It’s exactly 100 years to express the nation’s grief at the loss of so many lives in the First World War, to express hopes for future peace and to give support to those who returned from military service and still carried with them the physical and emotional scars of war.

“A century later, the same issues that first led the poppy to become such a powerful symbol of remembrance are with us. In St Andrew’s High, we are glad to display the poppies so that everyone who passes can take a moment of reflection, to think about the sacrifices of the past and to pray for peace and justice throughout the world.”