This article was originally published on October 19 2012.

Britain’s most poignant annual custom will be observed next month when more than 45m people will pause for the Two Minute Silence at 11am – the moment on the 11th day of the 11th month that the First World War came to an end In 1918.

The first Remembrance Day paid tribute to the estimated 703,000 troops from Britain who never returned from the Front. Sadly, it has grown ever more significant since then as World War II and subsequent conflicts up to the present have taken a mounting toll.

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Poppies have symbolised the event in Britain since 1921, when Anne Guerin sent hand-made poppies from France and persuaded the British Legion to adopt the flower as its symbol of remembrance, and the basis of its annual Poppy Appeal.

The first appeal raised £106,000 (close on £30m in today’s terms) and all the poppies were made by war widows in France. The following year they were made in London by the Disabled Society, which had just been founded by Major George Howson to provide jobs for ex-servicemen whose war injuries had made them unemployable.

Those first British poppies were produced by five disabled veterans in a small factory in London’s Old Kent Road, but within months there were 50 ex-servicemen on the payroll. As production increased the premises became too small, and in 1925 the enterprise moved to Petersham Road in Richmond, and was re-named the British Legion Poppy Factory.

It has remained in Richmond to this day, where it has also built 65 flats, some occupied by its workers, and the rest rented out to provide income.

This year marks the factory’s 90th birthday and its 60 employees are, as always, engaged in an astonishing output. Last year, for example, they made 135,000 wreaths, 1.7m remembrance crosses, and the 4m petals that float down from the ceiling during the two annual Festival of Remembrance services at the Royal Albert Hall.

They also hand-made 500,000 of the 49m poppies made for sale last year. The rest were produced with automated assembly equipment at the Poppy Appeal’s HQ in Kent.

For, though the jobs of the existing workforce are guaranteed, the Poppy Factory has launched a career support package that has already helped some 200 wounded or sick ex-service personnel to find and keep employment in many other fields.

Now its aim is to help further 500 back to work by 2015.

Meanwhile the sale of poppies is more vital than ever. The Poppy Factory needs the income it makes from supplying them, and the Royal British Legion relies on the funds raised from selling them, to help military personnel, maimed and traumatised in the service of Britain, get back into lives worth living.

As Remembrance Day approaches, I think of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, and regret that Kingston does not remember him as one of the most notable residents in its long history.

In 1917, when he set up home in Kingston, he was supreme commander of the Western front, which had more than 2m men, and was the largest force ever fielded by Britain.

The following year, against seemingly overwhelming odds, his unflinching leadership succeeded in defeating the German army.

He returned to Britain in December 1918 and met such a tumultuous welcome in Dover and London that, exhausted after four years leadership on front, he requested a quiet homecoming to Eastcott, his house in Kingston Hill, where his only son, George, had been born and baptised five months previously.

The mayor of Kingston reluctantly dropped plans for an official reception.

But workers at Sopwith’s aircraft factory, who made a vital contribution to the war effort, were determined to honour their hero.

That evening the entire workforce formed a procession outside the factory in Canbury Park Road. The company had provided three lorries bearing patriotic tableaux, and three brass bands were in attendance, plus drummers and buglers from local youth groups.

The procession, lit by flaring torches and Chinese lanterns, set off for Eastcott to the strains of See the Conquering Hero Comes, and arrived to find Haig and his wife waiting to receive them.

In an impromptu speech, Haig thanked the Sopwith workers for their huge output of fighter planes.

"You have the satisfaction of knowing you have done your bit, and more than your bit, in helping to win the war," he said, adding that this was the greatest day of his life.

Seven months later Kingston conferred on Haig the Freedom of the Royal Borough. This was the highest honour in its gift, bestowed only six times before.

The Haigs drove in open landaus to Kingston Market Place, cheered all the way by vast crowds and school children throwing petals. Dense crowds had gathered in Market Place, and a guard of honour from the East Surrey Regiment was lined up outside the town hall accompanied by the regimental band.

Haig’s Freedom document, contained in a silver casket bearing his arms and those of the Royal borough, proclaimed that “in darkest hour he never doubted clouds would break, so under his inspiring leadership the splendid British armies in France and Flanders stood undaunted with their backs to the wall, doggedly confronting a menace formidable and unscrupulous beyond all precedent, and having with heroic self-sacrifice beaten off furious and repeated onslaughts, these gallant soldiers and their trusty allies, with irresistible resilience sprang upon the foe, following him up and wearing him down without rest or respite, day by day, week by week, until at last Victory was achieved and Peace secured”.

After the war Haig, made an Earl in 1919, devoted himself to the welfare of ex-servicemen and their families. In 1921 he co-founded the British Legion with Thomas Lister, an ex-army private, and served as its active president until his death.

He also adopted Anna Guerin’s idea of using poppies (the symbol of the bloody battlefields of Flanders) as the Legion’s symbol and main fund raiser.

His last public engagement was at the Richmond Poppy Factory, when he attended the formation of his 20th Richmond (Earl Haig’s Own) Scout Troop for the sons of ex-servicemen.

He told the boys in his last public words: “Play the game, and try and realise what citizenship and public spirit really mean”.

A few hours later he died, and his Kingston-born son succeeded to the earldom aged nine.

Haig’s death certificate gave the cause of death “sudden heart failure, the result of the effects of the War and previous tropical and campaigning services on the heart muscle”.

The Poppy Appeal formerly operated as the Earl Haig Fund, and each flower had the initials HF in its centre. Then history revisionists judged politically incorrect, and his name was expunged.

Brigadier Brian Harding, who spent four years researching the history of the British Legion, explains why in his book, Keeping Faith.

“Haig got a bad press from armchair critics and plays such as Oh What a Lovely War,” he says. “He was vilified as a heartless butcher because of his huge casualty lists.

"Though these accusations are grossly unfair to anyone who knows the full facts, they so discredited him that the Legion felt obliged to drop his name in case it hindered their fundraising.”

Haig’s house, Eastcott, was on the south side of Kingston Hill, just before its junction with Warren Road. It was demolished several years ago for re-development.