Lest We Forget – Anzac Day 2014

The Flanders Poppy

99 years on, and 25th April is the observance day New Zealanders and Australians remember the fallen of the two World Wars.
I remember as a young girl getting up early in the morning to attend the annual Dawn Parade service with my father who passed in 2012 at the grand old age of 93.

The many thousands who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom. May they rest in peace.

We Shall Keep the Faith
'Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valour led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honour of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.'

Moina Michael