RBL believes that children are our future champions of Remembrance. Children have the potential to reintroduce Remembrance into families.  

There is an increasingly important role (and demand) for The Royal British Legion to bridge the education gap. The Remembrance team at the Legion produces educational materials that can be shared with schools, affiliated Youth Groups, and branches. Educational resources focus on.  

• Understanding what Remembrance is  

• Understanding who we Remember  

• And looking at different backgrounds and types of service and sacrifice 

Earlier this year I was having a conversation with my wife about encouraging younger members, when she suggested that the RBL should have a children’s mascot. This could be a stuffed toy and expanded to a series of books which could cover relevant educational topics. We hit upon the idea of a carrier pigeon called “Poppy” that could be used by the child to send messages. 

This also fits with the fact that in 1928 the Legion had Wabbly Wally the British Legion Mascot. (As purchased by HRH the Duchess of York for the then Princess Elizabeth, latterly HM Queen Elizabeth II.) 

Once discussing this idea with Sharon Turton and Pat Chadwick the idea snowballed. 

We decided that we needed to prove that there was an audience for this and as such we created the South East Midlands RBL Poppy the Pigeon Club page on Facebook. (We appreciate that there are age restrictions on Facebook and intend this to be for parents to show their children, thus removing some safeguarding issues.) This is a South East Mids RBL membership initiative only currently. 

We would like you to share the link to our Poppy the Pigeon Club as widely as you like so that we can gauge the interest. It matters not if the recipients are members or not. It may even get you enquiries to the branch which can be developed into members? 

The page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/PoppyThePigeonClub or for the technical amongst you via this QR code will take you straight there. 

To help us prove that there is an audience, and this is a worthwhile initiative, please ask people to like the page and post up any ideas of what they might like to see as part of the content. 

Sharon has now created from scratch a brilliant Mascot – Poppy the Pigeon – complete with message bag and Dicken Medal.  

Please help is to prove there is an interest, as we would like to be able to take our initiative to the RBL with a view to expanding the Poppy Theme Nationally.