Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Diary with pressed poppy, 21 September 1915 – 18 July 1918

Diary with pressed poppy, 21 September 1915 – 18 July 1918

Manuscript and pressed poppy

Purchased from GTC McClintock, 1919

MLMSS 2783 Item 3


Fragile and faded, a lasting memorial

One of the most iconic symbols of the Great War is the red poppy. Scarlet corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) grow naturally throughout Western Europe, particularly in fields where earth has been churned up. The land around the Western Front, ripped open from four years of devastating war, provided ideal conditions for poppies to grow across abandoned battlefields. These wild, deep red flowers came to symbolise the sacrifice of those who died in the War. Australian soldier, George McClintock kept a poppy pressed within the pages of his diary. 


According to Australia’s official war historian CEW Bean, a valley south of ANZAC beach got its name Poppy Valley “from the field of brilliant red poppies near its mouth”

ANZAC Day: traditions, facts and folklore, http://www.anzacday.org.au/education/tff/poppy.html, accessed 27/7/2015.


George kept 4 volumes of diaries whilst he served in the AIF. He sold this collection to the State Library of New South Wales in 1919 for £8.


George McClintock’s diaries are some of the hardest to read. The Library has digitised all of the pages, however as George wrote mostly in pencil (and often smudged the page with his hand), it is almost impossible in parts to read.


This same poppy also flowers in Turkey in early spring — as it did in April 1915 when the ANZACs landed at Gallipoli.