Steeped in blood is my Remembrance Poppy.
Redder than red with the ichor of a million Britons.
Mine might have mingled with it
Had not the bullet missed, the shell splinters
Gone astray. Fifty-five bonus years of life
I have been given, years in which
to grow through manhood to a ripe old age,
Not so my comrades. This they were denied.
(verse written by Sidney Fooks, MC, former English Master at Harrow County School, First World War officer, who was to have another 21 bonus years.)