If you've driven down Beach Road in recent weeks, you may have noticed a small patch of red flowers growing in front of a house in Denhams Beach.
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If so, those flowers are poppies, and have been grown for Remembrance Day by Graeme Russell.
The famous flowers became a symbol of war-time remembrance thanks to the famous 1915 poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae which refers to poppies growing among the graves of war victims in Belgium.
Poppies (usually artificial) have been used as a symbol of remembrance in Australia since 1921 where they are mainly laid at war memorials or sold by the RSL as a fundraiser.
Mr Russell, whose father served in the Australian army, said he planted the seeds about three months ago.
"One day I just thought to myself 'let's try to get some real poppies in town'," he said.
"I dug a bit of a trench, put in some good soil, planted the seeds, and voila, we have poppies.
"I've watched them grow up like babies I guess, I've got a lot of enjoyment out of it and I plan to share these poppies with people around town."
Mr Russell, a technical author who does work for the Australian Navy, spent eight years in Europe in his younger years, including a year in France.
"I've been to the place in France where they signed the treaty on Remembrance Day," he said.
"It's a train carriage in a forest near Compiegne, and it's a really moving place.
"I had the opportunity to go through the Somme and went into Belgium, and you can still see the remnants of the war.
"There's a British monument over there with 106,000 names on it - the amount of people killed was just staggering.
"We see the cost of our side of the war, but we don't often hear of the cost to the Germans - their loss of life was just as bad.
Remembrance Day will be held on Thursday, and Mr Rusell already has some plans in place for his special flowers.
"I'm hoping to put some of them in a jar at Coles, and I'll also offer some of the poppies to the Soldiers Club," he said.
"I'm just hoping people get enjoyment out of them."
Joel Erickson
Contact me at j.erickson@austcommunity.com.au or 0447 796 748.
Contact me at j.erickson@austcommunity.com.au or 0447 796 748.
