‘If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow, In Flanders fields’.

 

“IF YE BREAK FAITH WITH US WHO DIE, WE SHALL NOT SLEEP, THOUGH POPPIES GROW IN FLANDERS FIELDS.”

This drawing records a pathetic and moving incident that recently occurred at one of the war graves on the Western Front, where (as a double-page of photographs later in this number tells) there are numerous British military cemeteries, constantly visited by relatives of our “glorious dead” from the battlefields of France and Flanders. The mother, widow, and little daughter of one who fell early in the war visited his grave, and the mother reverently laid upon it the medals which, had he lived, would have been awarded him- —the Mons Medal, the British War Medal, and the British Victory Medal. She left them on grave for an hour or so, as a symbolic act of presentation, and then took them again, thus consecrated, as it were, into her own possession. The widow and little daughter are carrying bunches of poppies, the flowers of which a Canadian soldier-poet sings in the well-known lines above quoted. As signifying remembrance, this flower is the emblem of “Poppy” Day, kept on Armistice Day. Through the efforts of the British Legion and Earl Haig’s Appeal for ex-Service men, poppies are on sale everywhere, to raise funds to aid those who survived the war broken and poor. [Drawing Copyrighted in U.S. and Canada.]

 

The Illustrated London News – Saturday 12^th November 1921

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae

 

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 failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

If you cough – The Illustrated London News – Saturday 27th April 1895

Tea and Scandal – Gelhay – The Illustrated London News – Saturday 18th February 1893

Love’s a terrible thing – The Illustrated London News – Saturday 23 October 1926

Love’s a terrible thing – The Sketch – Wednesday 20th October 1926

Sunlight Soap – The Illustrated London News – Saturday 29th November 1902

Seeing these advertisements for Sunlight Soap reminded me of the book Campaigns of curiosity where the American Journalist, Elizabeth L. Bank worked as a maid, a flower girl and a laundry girl writing of her experiences working in what were seen and menial jobs (Campaigns of curiosity; journalistic adventures of an American girl in London )  However the bottom image would seem to be more consistent with Bank’s experience rather than the sanitised image of the “Laundress of today”