Where can I get a Belgian Daisy?

[DoubleD]

I am looking for a Belgian Daisy to attach to a poppy cross.

 

i am accompanying a group of school pupils on a trip next year and we will be visiting Longuenesse (St. Omer) Souvenir Cemetery. As well as two former pupils of the school, the cemetery contains the graves of many other nationalities. We would like to pay our respects at the grave of one representative of each country, and attach the appropriate symbol of remembrance to the standard poppy cross.

 

Munchkin posted a photo of an enamel badge on another post, and he told me that there are many souvenir shops in France and Belgium selling this type of badge.

 

Just to be on the safe side though, I would like to try and get one before we go. So...

 

Do they produce Remembrance Daisy's in Belgium similar to our poppy, or is it just enamel type souvenirs?;

Does anyone have one?;

Can anyone recommend any online souvenir shops, or contacts?

 

I have done the usual google search, amazon, eBay etc. but no success.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Many thanks,

Dave

[BarbaraG]

May not be what you want but have you tried Amazon - just read again. I found a lapel pin on Amazon.

 

Edited 10 December , 2017 by BarbaraG

[DoubleD]

Thanks for that BarbaraG.

 

Not exactly what I'm looking for, but may fit the bill if a Belgian Daisy doesn't exist.

 

Not the one at £15 though!

 

Cheers,

Dave

[BarbaraG]

munchkin posted 'Flowers of Remembrance" 26 June in 'Other Great War Chat'. Enquiry about Flowers for other countries.

 

(Agree about the £15)

 

[Aurel Sercu]

DoubleD,

 

" Do they produce Remembrance Daisy's in Belgium similar to our poppy, or is it just enamel type souvenirs?;"

 

Living here, I have never heard of Remembrance Daisies ... I really didn't know they may exist here. I don't even know if there are enamel type souvenirs ... But then, living here I never buy souvenirs...

The only sort of daisy we may know of here is : He loves me, he loves me not ...

 

Aurel

 

[DoubleD]

Did they say that in Belgium as well! Certainly did in Yorkshire. Takes me right back to my childhood. Buttercups, dandelions. 

 

i wonder if young kids still say rhymes like that?

 

Cheers,

Dave

[DoubleD]

Having had a think about the replies I've had to this post I think I'll put it to bed.

 

I've probably been a bit too hung up about being politically correct. Although I've found references to the daisy being a symbol of remembrance, it's clearly not that important to people in Belgium. I don't think anyone is going to be offended, whatever I use.. I'm just going to find a nice daisy somewhere, and use that.

 

The important thing is, after all, that the kids take a few moments to pay their respects.

 

Thanks Barbara and Aurel.

Dave

[SiegeGunner]

I bought an enamel pin badge in the shop at the IFF Museum in Ieper earlier this year, which an assistant told me represented the Belgian national flower of remembrance.  It was a flower of the daisy family, I think, but not the common-or-garden lawn daisy.  The grippy disk that holds the pin in place was not very effective and it fell out of my lapel unnoticed soon afterwards, so I am unable to describe it or take a photo.  As far as showing respect goes, I think is fine for each nationality to use their own symbol of remembrance, and a poppy placed on a Belgian monument/memorial is perhaps a more distinctive token of inter-national solidarity than a little-known daisy.  You certainly see more poppies than forget-me-nots in German cemeteries.  

[DoubleD]

Thanks for your comments SiegeGunner.

 

Not complaining! but now in a bit more of a dilemma: Poppy or Daisy? Or both?

 

Dave

[SiegeGunner]

Poppy certainly and daisy if you can find one, but don't worry if you can't. 

[Aurel Sercu]

SiegeGunner Mick,

 

You wrote:

"which an assistant told me represented the Belgian national flower of remembrance.  It was a flower of the daisy family, I think, but not the common-or-garden lawn daisy."

 

I really didn't know that. Was it larger than a lawn daisy ? But I'll be in the shop tomorrow, and will inquire

 

Aurel

 

P.S. Just found this in Wikipedia (Dutch name "madeliefje"):

Het madeliefje is in België een symbool van herdenking van de Eerste Wereldoorlog, zoals de korenbloem dat is voor Frankrijk en de klaproos voor de Angelsaksische landen.

(madeliefje = daisy; klaproos = poppy; korenbloem = ? (my dictionary says cornflower, bluebottle ; I would say "bleuet'", but that's because nearby is "Bleuet Farm Cemetery". So the name was taken from French.)

Anyway, ask 100 people here what the symbol is for WOI remembrance, and 99 will say : the poppy. (No, I will not be that one exception :-) .) And I suppose that when you ask these 99 if there is a specific Flemish symbol, they won't know ...

Edited 12 December , 2017 by Aurel Sercu
P.S. added 5 minutes later

[SiegeGunner]

Hi Aurel.  I really don't remember it very well, but I think its leaves were off-white with either blue veins or a blue tinge to the leaf edges.  It was about the size of small coin ... but I have no idea whether it represented the true scale of the flower it was based on. 

 

Souvenir badges aside, if you are not familiar with a particular flower being used in Belgian remembrance wreathes or alone as a national symbol of remembrance, then I think our friend Dave can safely be assured that he need not spend time and effort looking for one.

 

Mick

[DoubleD]

Dear Aurel and Mick,

 

Thanks so much for looking up all this information. I do agree that there is absolutely no doubt that using a poppy is correct.

 

Looking at your Wikipedia entry, I have actually arranged to get a "Bleuet" from the French Embassy in Edinburgh for our visit. They are definitely worn by the French on Remembrance Day.

 

Having said in my post above that I might be getting a bit "hung up" about getting things correct, it's interesting how we all become so involved in the search for the correct answer to a question. As we always should of course, it is actually important.

 

Being a Yorkshireman, who has lived in Scotland for over 47 years, here's another question for you. Slightly tongue in cheek of course! Should I use the Scottish Poppy or the British Legion Poppy?

 

I'm really looking forward to the answer to that one!

 

Thanks again,

Dave

[healdav]

On 12/12/2017 at 16:39, DoubleD said:

Dear Aurel and Mick,

 

Thanks so much for looking up all this information. I do agree that there is absolutely no doubt that using a poppy is correct.

 

Looking at your Wikipedia entry, I have actually arranged to get a "Bleuet" from the French Embassy in Edinburgh for our visit. They are definitely worn by the French on Remembrance Day.

 

Having said in my post above that I might be getting a bit "hung up" about getting things correct, it's interesting how we all become so involved in the search for the correct answer to a question. As we always should of course, it is actually important.

 

Being a Yorkshireman, who has lived in Scotland for over 47 years, here's another question for you. Slightly tongue in cheek of course! Should I use the Scottish Poppy or the British Legion Poppy?

 

I'm really looking forward to the answer to that one!

 

Thanks again,

Dave

I go regularly to commemorations in France, and while they always (for the last seven or eight years), have bleuets on sale, they re labels from a roll!

It was only when the Queen went to Paris for a commemoration and wore a corsage of poppies, that Chirac, suddenly discovered that the bleuet was the traditional French flower for commemorations. No one had ever heard of it when he said it was traditional!

All are tickled pink at seeing me wearing a poppy (and I buy a bleuet), so I usually carry a handful of them and distribute them to anyone who wants one. One woman even got a special dress covered in a poppy design to wear at commemorations for some years!

Edited 14 December , 2017 by healdav

[von Smallhausen]

hello,

In the nineties of past century the NSB ( Nationale Strijdersbond =Belgian veteran organisation) sold this type of flower ( daisy?) on the 11 november. It was sold two or three years and was no succes like the British poppy.

kind regards,

Jef

 

[DoubleD]

healdav, and Jef,

 

This is all getting very interesting!

 

I suppose the moral of the story is that I shouldn't believe everything I read on the internet!

 

Funny how so many of these entries say that the Bleuet and the Daisy are "traditional" and yet the answer coming from the horses mouth, from people who actually live there, seems to contradict this, and suggest it is much more recent.

 

It's quite a nice looking flower though. I think I would be quite chuffed to wear that on my lapel!

 

Thanks to you both,

Dave

[KGB]

Korenbloem = Cornflower. 

[Aurel Sercu]

Hello Jef (and Dave and Healdav and ...)

 

I have no idea what your flower is ! Certainly not a daisy !  ;-)

 

This morning to the IFFM shop. This is a photo I took. Not good quality, but that's because it is still in the plastic wrapping. (I could have bought one, but as Mick SiegeGunner said that ...  ). The photo does not give an idea of the size, but it is small. Compare with the staple (left bottom corner).

 

Yes, they do sell it, I was told, but not often ... And they agree : only specialists know about the daisy being the Belgian symbol. (And as I myself did noit know, this says something about me !  :-)  )

 

In the research centre I saw a booklet in their collection of the different sorts of flowers of remembrance. But I did not have the time to ... (Yes, I have a lot of "work".  :-) ) Do you want me to take photos next time I am there (coming Wednesday) of some pages you are interested in in particular? (Cornflowers (bleuets) , the daisy ?... Finding information on the the poppy itself on the internet will not be a problem.)

 

Aurel

[SiegeGunner]

Evening Aurel.  Yes, that's the chap.  The one I bought (and then promptly lost) didn't have the 'Belgium 1914-1918' bit, though.  Now that I see it again, it clearly is a daisy after all  ...  which fits with the pattern of WW1 flowers of remembrance being wild flowers that grew on the battlefields.

 

Mick

[AOK4]

Hello,

 

We used it in 2016 when we had our Bissegem 1914-1918 project. At least we were able to tell the story about the Belgian daisy to the people who visited our exhibition and other activities.

 

Jan

[von Smallhausen]

Sorry Aurel about the colours of the daisy.

Maybe we can recommend this leaflet, sold in IFF, to our British friends.

Kind regards,

Jef

 

[Aurel Sercu]

Jan,

 

Has the daisy always been a Belgian symbol since the war ? Or only in more recent years (decades) ?

But maybe I can find the answer in what Jef showed, which indeed was the booklet I had in mind (and in my hands, this morning).

 

In the IFFM shop I was told that in Germany there are different geographical (regional) variations as to which flower is the Gedenkblume ? True. But I can find the answer to my question in the booklet too.

 

Aurel

[AOK4]

Daisies were originally the Belgian commemoration flower, but they had fallen into disuse. There were some efforts to revive the daisy in more recent year, with not that much result, although some people used the flower during commemorations.

[Aurel Sercu]

Bedankt, Jan !

"Fallen into disuse" ... Maybe for practical reasons too ... For it is not really easy to make wreaths etc. with it. (But the same can be said for bleuets.) And of course, McCrae's poppy gained immense and international popularity ...

[DoubleD]

Hello all,

 

I'm not sure if anyone will still be interested in my search for a Belgian daisy, but I thought I would post the attached photo and hopefully bring things to a conclusion.

 

Thanks to the advice of Forum pals I have managed to get a daisy from the In Flanders Fields museum in Ypres. The other flowers of remembrance have been obtained from various sources, and I have been promised a Bleuet from the French Embassy in Edinburgh, and a Kiwi Poppy from a friend's son who lives out there.

 

Many thanks to you all,

Dave