As the Royal British Legion turns 100, we look back at a century of heroic work
AS it turns 100, the nation will today give thanks to the Royal British Legion for helping tens of thousands of our brave soldiers. Prince Charles will lead tributes to the charity’s work for veterans and their families over the decades. It comes after Sun readers last year raised £10million for the Legion — famous […]
AS it turns 100, the nation will today give thanks to the Royal British Legion for helping tens of thousands of our brave soldiers.
Prince Charles will lead tributes to the charity’s work for veterans and their families over the decades.
It comes after Sun readers last year raised £10million for the Legion — famous for its red poppy emblem.
Co-founded by Battle of the Somme commander Field Marshall Hague, the Legion was set up in 1921 to support soldiers and sailors discharged from World War One.
After World War Two its membership hit three million in 1950.
Between the two world wars the organisation lobbied the Government to provide for anyone injured, disabled, widowed or orphaned due to active service.
Now, a century after it began, the charity is helping more than 90,000 veterans and their families, at a cost of £50million a year.
It successfully campaigned for the UK census to record the number of former service personnel — and it is currently fighting to scrap the £2,389 visa fees Commonwealth veterans must pay to stay in the UK.
British Legion in numbers
£84,000 collected by the first Poppy Appeal in 1921 – £4m in today’s money
40,000,000 poppies made each year by British Legion
235,0000 Legion members
£49,300,000 spent by Legion on veterans in 2019
2,500 Legion branches. You don’t need to have served to be a member
255 D-Day veterans sailed on a Legion ship to Normandy for the 65th anniversary in 2019
888,246 ceramic poppies filled Tower Of London moat for centenary of World War One in July, 2014, representing British personnel killed in the conflict
When the Covid pandemic threatened to wreck last year’s Poppy Appeal because thousands of collectors were not allowed on the streets with their tins, YOU stepped in to help.
‘THEY DESERVE THE BEST’
Our Poppy Stars campaign made sure the Legion’s annual fundraiser was not forgotten and directed the public to other ways of giving, including online donations.
In a ceremony at the Cenotaph in London this morning, representatives of the Royal Navy, Army, RAF and Merchant Navy will lay wreaths.
The event replicates the 9am ceremony exactly 100 years ago today when the British Legion was founded.
And amazing pictures, seen here, have revealed what life was like in the charity’s early days.
Help after crash hell
SINGLE mum Naomi Hall served for 16 years in the RAF and is grateful for the British Legion’s help.
Naomi, 39, from Eccles, Greater Manchester, completed two tours of the Falklands before a four-month stint in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2011, where a colleague was shot dead.
Back home in the UK, Naomi self-harmed while still in service and was medically discharged in October 2015. She went to the RBL’s centre at Lilleshall, Shrops, during her rehabilitation.
The charity also paid for her to take her daughter Natasha, now 13, on holiday for the first time, to Wales and later the US.
It stepped in again when a 65mph motorway crash in 2017 left the ex-RAF Senior Aircraftsman in an induced coma for a fortnight – and she had to relearn how to walk and talk.
Naomi, who now works as a project manager, says: “The Legion have been incredible.”
The incredible images have been newly released by the TopFoto archives and painstakingly brought to life through colourisation to mark the Legion’s centenary.
Members of the Legion’s 2,500 branches will also hold ceremonies in towns and villages across the UK.
At this afternoon’s FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium between Chelsea and Leicester City, the referee will toss a specially minted 50p poppy coin to mark the historic anniversary.
At 1pm, two World War Two fighter planes from the Battle of Britain memorial flight will perform a fly-past over the National Memorial Arboretum in Burton-on-Trent, Staffs, before flying over Galanos House in Southam, Warks, one of the Legion’s six care homes.
In a video, Prince Charles will tell supporters of the charity, which was granted a royal charter in 1925: “The Armed Forces community makes a unique contribution to society.
Sun saver nets £10million
WE launched our Poppy Stars campaign in September after it was revealed that one in three poppy collectors would not be out on the streets due to the pandemic.
Then, just before Remembrance Sunday, Britain went into lockdown and no one could sell poppies on the streets.
But thanks to The Sun highlighting alternative ways to donate, and with the backing of stars like David Beckham, the appeal was saved.
Our big-hearted readers raised £10million for the Royal British Legion – which will help thousands of veterans.
Gran, 100, is a win-ner
GREAT-great grandma Win Brace was just two weeks old when the British Legion was formed.
And for nearly 70 years she collected hundreds of thousands of pounds for the charity.
She and husband Toby married in 1940 – and four years later he fought with the Somerset Light Infantry at Caen, in Normandy, where he was invalided out after problems with his foot.
Win, who turned 100 on May 2 and has a one-year-old great-great granddaughter, says: “Luckily he came home, because the following week all his mates were killed in a trench.”
Win’s brother, Pte Norman Fletcher, was killed in Holland in February 1945 serving with the Yorks and Lancs Regiment. He was 28 and had a baby son.
After the war, Toby and Win – who had three children – saved their RBL branch in Mountnessing, Essex, from closure.
Win finally gave up collecting at age 88.
She says: “The Legion does amazing work.”
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“They give us the best of themselves and they deserve the best in return.
“Fortunately, the Royal British Legion has always provided that.”
And remember, if you choose to wear a poppy today there is no right or wrong way to do it — just wear it with pride.