RICHMOND, United Kingdom (AFP) — In a London factory, military veterans have spent all year making the artificial red poppies that millions will wear in their lapels as Britain marks the World War I armistice centenary.

Some 30 former service personnel, who have all suffered physical or psychological injury, also make the wreaths that will be used on November 11.

The Royal British Legion Poppy Factory, by the River Thames in suburban Richmond, was founded in 1922 to provide work for sick, injured or disabled veterans.

“I feel like I’m doing something to be proud of. It’s important giving something back because of all the mates I’ve lost over the years,” said 59-year-old Alex Conway.

Seated at a desk, the former British army and French foreign legion soldier quickly assembles a poppy for a wreath.

Conway signed up for the army as a teenager and after about 15 years in uniform and several missions in Africa, he had a “very difficult” transition to civilian life.

He was finally diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) just over a year ago, which helped him better understand problems with his marriage, anger and alcohol.

Conway puts his salvation down to the poppy factory.

“We have a good laugh, so it’s comradeship again, like being in the army,” he told AFP. “We look after each other.”

ANNUAL APPEAL

In an adjoining room a machine cuts hundreds of petals from a red sheet of paper. The poppies are assembled on a wooden block designed to be used one-handed by amputees.

The factory made 140,000 wreaths by hand last year and disabled veterans and homeworkers made 7.6 million poppies.

They are part of the 40 million poppies sold by the Royal British Legion charity during its annual November campaign, raising around £50 million (US$65 million) to help support veterans and their families.

For at least a fortnight ahead of November 11, poppies are seen on television, coat lapels, car bumpers, newspaper mastheads, lamp posts and football team jerseys.

The poppy’s origin as a remembrance symbol lies in Canadian soldier John McCrae’s 1915 poem, In Flanders Fields.

It cites the poppies growing on the graves of fallen World War I comrades in Belgium and north-eastern France.

Given the scale of the casualties, people “felt an overwhelming desire to remember and to grieve in a way that had never happened before”, said Imperial War Museum curator Richard Hughes.

“They needed symbols to associate with.”

The red poppy is not ubiquitous.

A rising number opt for a pacifist white poppy, of which around 100,000 are now sold, while others wear a purple poppy in tribute to animals lost in service.

PTSD PRISONER

But the red poppy was given renewed meaning following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where 454 and 179 British troops were killed, respectively.

“When people come back in body bags… it just focuses people’s minds on what war means, what loss means, what grief means,” said Hughes.

He said of the poppy: “It’s such a part of the fabric of this country and its history that I don’t think it will ever go away.”

The poppy factory now works to extend its original remit beyond the workshop floor.

Since 2010, it has helped 1,000 military veterans into civilian employment.

Yvette Beer, 51, a former military driver who served in the 1990s Bosnian War, recently found work in a deliveries job, more than two decades after she was discharged from the army at 29 due to a stroke, which left her feeling “put on the scrap heap”.

Like Beer, 34-year-old Lee Matthews is proud to see people wearing poppies on their winter coats.

He lost several comrades in Iraq in 2004 and struggled for years afterwards, shutting himself off for fear of harming himself or someone else.

“I couldn’t go out because I was suffering from PTSD,” he said.

“I just cut myself off as a prisoner in my one-bedroom flat.

“Without the poppy factory and the British Legion, I’d still be where I was — I’d still be in a mess.”