Why are poppies worn, plus 4 more things you need to know about Armistice Dayĥ Official knitting patterns were introduced to discourage ‘rogue knitters’Ĭivilians were busily knitting garments for British soldiers during the First World War.

A 1914 article in the trade periodical the Tailor and Cutter reported that one of the alternative outfits was “not at all liked, the first men to wear it being mistaken for inmates of an industrial home”.

Some soldiers were issued with old full-dress parade tunics – scarlet with colourful facings and blue trousers from various reserve stores.

The War Office also ordered a huge volume of jackets, trousers and greatcoats from Canada and the United States. They were obtained from a range of unlikely sources: 500,000 suits of blue serge uniforms from Post Office stocks, and approximately 500,000 greatcoats purchased from the clothing trade. The War Office had failed to obtain enough khaki uniforms in the opening weeks of the war, and early recruits were forced to wear replacement uniforms. ‘Kitchener blue’ was the collective name given to replacement uniforms used by the British Army when it ran out of khaki in 1914. 3 For a time, khaki was replaced by ‘Kitchener blue’

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