The annual Service of Remembrance and wreath-laying ceremony commemorating the fallen will be held at the Commonwealth War Cemetery, Solymár, on Sunday, 8 November 2009.

The service commences at 1055 hrs and you are asked to arrive at the cemetery no later than 1045 hrs.

The cemetery is situated 10 kms north-west of Budapest on the road to Dorog and Esztergom (Route 10). Lying on the left of the highway, it is immediately before the turning for Solymár village. An alternative approach is to leave Budapest via Hűvösvölgyi út and Hidegkúti út and then follow the signs for Route 10 through Solymár village. The traffic police, who will be in attendance, have asked drivers to avoid parking on the main road.

Those who have not previously attended the ceremony should be warned that the cemetery is in an exposed position. It can be bitterly cold, even when sunny and mild in the city.

Poppies will be available at the British and Canadian Embassies and at various other locations in Budapest from early November. They will also be available at Solymár Cemetery before the service. All donations go to the Royal British Legion to help ex-servicemen.

Commonwealth War Cemetery, Solymár

This plot of land was given by the Hungarian Government in 1947 as:

"a gift of the people of Hungary for the perpetual
               resting place of the airmen who are honoured here."

and contains the remains of 210 airmen who lost their lives over Hungary in air strikes mounted from Italy mainly in support of the Warsaw uprising between April and November 1944:

Royal Air Force 128
Polish Air Force 37
South African Air Force 20
Royal Australian Air Force 13
Royal Canadian Air Force 6
Royal New Zealand Air Force 6
France 1

There is also one seaman from HM Minelayer 434 who was killed on the Danube in 1919 during the peace enforcement operation after the 1914-18 War (there are two other Royal Navy graves in the cemetery at Baja in southern Hungary).

In 1945-46, the Allied Control Commission attempted to trace the graves of the airmen who died during the 1944 raids.  Their remains were recovered and brought to Solymár where they were interred in the present cemetery, at first with wooden markers. These were replaced with the present headstones in 1950-54.

The cemetery is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.  The world-wide work of the Commission is funded by the governments of the UK, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand and South Africa in proportion to the numbers of their dead in the two World Wars.

The Poppy

After World War I the numbers of wounded ex-servicemen led to the founding of the British Legion in 1921 with Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig as the first President.

The idea for the Fund came from an American lady Moyna Michael. She had read the poem "In Flanders Fields" by a Canadian, Colonel John McCrae RAMC, about the poppies. (She wrote three more stanzas). Feeling that this would be a fitting emblem and way to raise money, she tried it in 1918 in America. Then with a French colleague, Mme Guérin they made poppies with paper and wire. She persuaded the British Legion of their value.

The first poppies came from France, but now they are made in Kent in a factory staffed by (often disabled) ex-servicemen.

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