Norfolk poppies

A tiring day, spent trrudging around the boundaries of a Norfolk farm. The weather stayed dry, but in the afternoon it became hot and humid, making the work extra tiring.The real highlight of the day was a fallow field populated with hunbdreds of thousands of soft greyish plants of common cudweed, acting as a perfect foil for brilliant red poppies.

It was more than a century ago, in the 1880s, that the writer Clement Scott popularised the Norfolk coast between Cromer and Overstrand and first coined the name 'Poppyland' for this area.

Poppies remain much-loved flowers and in 2004 were voted the county flower of Norfolk. The association between poppies and cereal fields is ancient and this species may have arrived in Norfolk more than 5,000 years ago with the first Neolithic farmers. In medieval times poppies were known as corn roses. Other names such as thundercup, thunderflower and lightnings were linked to the superstition that poppies must not be picked for fear of causing storms. In the twentieth century, flowering on the battle-fields, they became a powerful symbol of the First World War.