One of Britain’s first ever poppy sellers is amazingly still raising money for the Royal British Legion at the age of 100. Rosemary Powell, of Stamford Brook, Hammersmith, started at the charity’s first ever appeal in 1921. She was just six years old at the time when she sold poppies on Twickenham Bridge with her mother, and her efforts to help the military and the legion have never wavered.
“I will go on as long as I can,” she said. “I’ll be 101 in January.
“I do it because I’m able to do it. Someone has got to do it, why not me? I’m perfectly capable as long as I can sit.”
Originally from Cumberland (now Cumbria), Rosemary moved to London to train as a nurse after working as a voluntary nurse, known as a VAD, at a military hospital in Manchester. She looked after German prisoners of war, aided by her knowledge of French which many of them could speak.
She qualified as a nurse at St Thomas’ Hospital in Lambeth set up by Florence Nightingale. After the war, she became a midwife, working at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital when it was based in Goldhawk Road, Hammersmith. She then became a Girl Guide leader and later a missionary in Africa, before returning to England to start a family.
She says she will keep selling poppies to help all those who fight in our name around the world and was with her collection box at Kings Mall in Hammersmith this week.
Rosemary is part of a team of dedicated volunteers based at 181 King Street after being given the empty office space by Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
This year the volunteers will also be selling poppies at QPR on Saturday 7 November, the day before Remembrance Sunday.