All Articles The Story Behind the 2024 Poppy Scouts Uniform Badge

The Story Behind the 2024 Poppy Scouts Uniform Badge

From Flax to Flight: The Importance of a Seed

This year, we have decided to celebrate part of our Heritage that links directly to the Royal British Legion in designing our Official Poppy & Scouts Uniform Badge.

Scouts started in 1907, and seven years later, when the First World War broke out, the skills they learned through their activities and badge programme were tested like never before: they were called on to help in many areas on the Home Front, including coast watching, carrying messages, and working on the land. Britain entered the First World War on 4 August 1914, a few weeks before the start of the harvest season. Why is this relevant? Harvest is a crucial event for farming that requires manual labour; by entering the war in August, many young men who would have been harvesting in August volunteered for military service, causing a labour shortage during this critical phase of the farming year.

Within days of the start of the war, a message went out to encourage Scouts to volunteer for farm work, and there was even a call for Scouts to go to France to help with their harvest, too. Two thousand Scouts were put on standby to travel across the Channel to help, although the French authorities ultimately declined this offer.

During the war, the need for help on farms increased. What did Scouts do? Many converted their traditional summer break camp into a working camp to assist local farmers. It wasn't just the food harvest that needed their help: farmers were asked to grow flax, a plant vital to the war effort. Flax, also known as linseed, is a flowering plant cultivated as a food and fibre crop; this means that fibres from flax could be used to produce linen, which was stretched and treated with chemicals to construct the wings of fighter planes.

This is why there are gold flax plants and a needle with a thread that becomes an aeroplane in the 2024 Poppy & Scouts Uniform Badge.

The Royal British Legion provides financial, social and emotional support to members and veterans of the British Armed Forces, their families and dependants. There is no better way to celebrate our heritage and their work than a badge that brings us all together to support both organisations.

Scout Store are proud to introduce a range of products produced in partnership with the Royal British Legion (RBL) and the Scouts.

This sew-on woven uniform badge features the two petal Poppy and Scouts fleur de lis emblem with the year 2024.
This badge can be worn on your uniform or sewn onto a blanket or poncho and it's perfect to show support for The Royal British Legion and Scouts partnership. 10% of net sales from the sale of all the products in the Scouts-Poppy Range will be paid to Royal British Legion Trading Limited (Company No. 4783730 registered in England and Wales) which gives its taxable profits to The Royal British Legion (Charity No. 219279) and Poppyscotland (Scottish Charity No. SC014096).

The Scouts and the Royal British Legion Poppy Partnership for 2024

The Royal British Legion supports the Armed Forces community, past and present. Scouts was active throughout the world wars and, as such, we want to support the Royal British Legion to remember those who've been and continue to be affected by conflict. As Scouts we’re privileged to partner with them. This is why we created a joint product range for our members and their families to wear on Remembrance Sunday – and beyond.