Poppy

I have seen this old, disused chimney many times from a local supermarket car park. I have only just noticed the large poppy on the top and the ‘tastefully’ disguised cell phone antennas. The chimney is of course part of the site of the Lady Haig Poppy Factory in what was a printing works on Warriston Road. It moved here from Whitefoord house on the Royal Mile in 1965 where Lady Haig in 1926 (wife of the first world war Field Marshall) suggested that disabled men should be employed to make poppies for distribution in Scotland. Currently they produce some 5 million poppies and 10 wreaths for the annual Remembrance Day commemations.