The Royal British Legion has opened its annual poppy appeal with a ceremony that doubled as a quiet act of national memory, honouring those who died in war and those still carrying its burdens.

Held just ahead of Remembrance Day in November, the launch underscores why the poppy remains one of the UK’s most enduring commemorative symbols: it funds real assistance for serving personnel from the Royal Navy, Army, and Royal Air Force, for veterans, and for their families, while keeping public attention on the human cost of conflict. Organisers of the 2025 appeal said they aim to help thousands through financial, practical, and emotional support, reflecting the Legion’s century-long role as a bridge between military service and civilian life.

This year, Belgium is again a focal point. As part of a year-long series of commemorations for the war dead, a key ceremony will take place on November 9—Remembrance Sunday—at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Heverlee, near Leuven. The site is the resting place of more than 1,000 casualties from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, the UK, and the United States, a reminder that the sacrifice commemorated each November was shared across continents. The service will begin at 10:45 a.m. and run for about 45 minutes, in keeping with the quiet, disciplined tone of British remembrance abroad.

Speaking at the British ambassador’s residence in Brussels on October 23, Anne Sherriff, the UK’s ambassador to Belgium, said she was “absolutely honoured” to launch this year’s appeal. She called the poppy “a symbol of resilience, remembrance, and recognition” for those who “sacrificed their lives” so that future generations could live in freedom. “We must never forget,” she said, noting that Belgium’s landscape still bears the traces of two world wars and of “so many good young men who laid down their lives for freedom.” The Legion’s work, she stressed, ensures that neither the fallen nor their surviving families “are overlooked,” and that the lesson of their sacrifice—that freedom is worth defending—remains in public view.

Her remarks were echoed by Group Captain John Dickson, who described the Legion’s work as “an amazing cause.” He drew attention to two Chelsea Pensioners, Norman Bareham and Tommy Fox, who had travelled from the UK for the event in their distinctive scarlet coats and blue trousers. Chelsea Pensioners are retired soldiers who live at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, and their presence has become a kind of living link to Britain’s military past. Norman said the ceremony was a “touching” reminder of why the Legion was founded in the first place: to remember not only the dead of the two world wars, but those lost or wounded in every conflict since. “It is all about remembering not just the dead from two world wars but right up to the present day,” he said.

Speakers and guests alike underlined that the Legion’s appeal is not confined to the First and Second World Wars. It also honours service in later conflicts—the Falklands, the Gulf War, and ongoing operations—and seeks to support those still dealing with the aftershocks of service. That theme resonated with many in the room.

Among them was Kathleen Johnson, a UK–Belgian national whose father, Eric Johnson, arrived in Belgium shortly after the Second World War and joined the Royal British Legion. He went on to serve as standard bearer for the Brussels branch for half a century, until his death at 96 in 2021. “This appeal is so important still because it gives us a chance to remember all soldiers, many of them very young, who gave their lives for freedom,” she said.

There was also testimony from Jean-Pierre Pede, vice chair of the Brussels branch of the Legion, whose father-in-law was a veteran and among the first to help liberate Brussels after the war. For him, the appeal is “a special period of the calendar each year, lasting until the end of November, when we can help raise funds for veterans’ families and loved ones.” The Rev. Canon John Wilkinson, chaplain of the Brussels branch, put it more starkly: funds raised through the appeal “help make life possible” for those families—an indication that behind the ceremony and poetry, there is material need.

That need persists even though the UK government has pledged to do more. London has announced a £33 million funding package over the next three years to support veterans, an acknowledgment that the welfare and transition needs of former service members are ongoing. But, as military charities regularly point out, government provision does not cover everything, and organisations such as the Royal British Legion still fill crucial gaps in care, rehabilitation, and family support. British veterans continue to approach the charity daily for assistance, underlining why the Poppy Appeal remains central to the UK’s culture of remembrance.

Most of the funds raised in Belgium will be channelled back to the Legion in the UK, organisers said, largely because there are now very few living British veterans residing in Belgium. In Belgium, the focus is instead on commemorative events that take place throughout the year, including the Heverlee ceremony next month and others held recently in Leuven and Hotton, which together sustain a cross-border culture of remembrance embedded in local communities.

The launch event in Brussels had a cultural centrepiece as well: a performance titled “Lest We Forget” by a group of Belgium-based artists and musicians. Among them was Belfast-born writer Graham Andrews, a former soldier who served in the 1960s, including in Yemen. “People forget what an awful conflict that was,” he said, “so this is a chance to remember.” Musician and songwriter Oliver Gray, well known on the Belgian scene and resident in the country since the 1970s, called the event “particularly poignant” because his great-uncle had been an army officer in Ypres during the First World War. “It is important to understand what war means and how we can stop them from happening in the first place,” he said. “If we can use the power of music and art to achieve this, then the world would be a better place.”

Long-time Brussels resident and British-born journalist Paul Meller said he too felt “very proud to be part of this occasion and to honour, in our small way, those who fought for Britain and others.” Representatives from the Scout movement in Belgium were also present, underscoring the intergenerational character of remembrance.

The ceremony wove in the familiar literary and historical touchstones of British commemoration. A passage was read from Rupert Brooke’s First World War poem “The Soldier”: “If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field; That is for ever England”—a line that lands differently when read in a European capital that still cares diligently for British graves. Guests were also reminded of the Christmas Eve truce of 1914, when soldiers from opposing sides briefly put down their weapons, played football, and exchanged gifts—an anecdote that has long served as proof that even in industrial war, humanity surfaced.

Speakers noted that the First World War alone claimed more than nine million lives and stands as one of the deadliest conflicts in history, wiping out a generation of young men across Europe. Bringing that scale of loss into the present is part of what the Legion does each year: it connects the red poppies sold on street corners to the names on headstones in Flanders and to the families who still need help a century later.

The event closed with a rendition of “Abide with Me,” sung in part by Mrs. Glen Aston of the Military Wives Choir of Belgium. “I am proud to be involved in the whole ceremony and this appeal launch,” she said. “It is for a great cause.”
In the run-up to Remembrance Day on November 11, poppies will be on sale throughout the UK and in Belgium, inviting the public—once again—to convert remembrance into support.