Today I wear a poppy

to respect those who are dead,

today I wear a poppy,

it symbolises bloodshed,

today I wear a poppy,

war is not the way ahead,

today I wear a poppy,

make peace the word instead,

today I wear a poppy ,

to remember those who are dead,

today I wear a poppy,

a silent tear I shed,

today I wear a poppy.

People stop work at 11am on November 11th because it was the time and date when hostilities formally ended after more than four years of fighting during World War I. Poppies are worn as a symbol of respect on Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday nearest to the 11th. This is done to remind us not to forget the 20 million who died in that conflict, this is respected with a two minute silence. The first reference to the poppy and battlefields was during the Napoleonic wars, the fields that were barren before the war were full of red poppies when the conflicted ended. After John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields was published in 1915, it became a symbol of soldiers who lost their lives in battle.

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