For more than 80 years disabled ex-servicemen and, more recently, the disabled dependants of ex-servicemen have produced the scarlet flower for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal at a small factory near the Thames in Richmond, Surrey.

The first poppy was sold in Britain on November 11, 1921. It was bought in the West End of London a few seconds after midnight. By daybreak, The Times reported, the demand for poppies had outstripped supply.

Across the country, at railway stations, hotels and restaurants, people were paying far more than the official price of 3d for a poppy. In Smithfield Market the petals were selling for £5; at Lloyd’s in the City of London collection boxes were stuffed full of notes. At Christie’s a basket of the flowers was auctioned for more than £463.

The Royal British Legion headquarters on Charles Street emptied crate after crate. Lady Haig, who arrived in a car full of poppies, soon sold them all — including those that she had been wearing.

Many of those first poppies sold in Britain were assembled by French orphans and widows who lived in the areas most ravaged by the First World War. The poppy — which had grown on the battlefields and inspired the Canadian John McCrae’s poem In Flanders’ Fields — was already popular in Canada and the US. After a complaint that it was a pagan symbol unfit for remembering the fallen, the appeal’s chairman wrote to The Times that the legion’s objective was to change the significance of the flower from one of “oblivion” to “remembrance”.

The Poppy Factory was set up in 1922 by Major George Howson, who had served on the Western Front, to produce the poppies for Earl Haig’s Legion. His objective was to provide severely wounded veterans of the First World War with employment, assembling the simply designed flower, as a means to support their families and regain their self-respect.

In the factory’s first year Major Howson wrote to his parents: “If the experiment is successful it will be the start of an industry to employ 150 men. I do not think it can be a great success, but it is worth trying. I consider the attempt ought to be made if only to give the disabled their chance.”

The first premises were on the Old Kent Road, London. By 1923 millions of poppies were offered in the UK, abroad and even on board ocean liners. Haig warned the public against unofficial poppy-sellers whose activities would bring no benefit to ex-servicemen and who had reportedly got many of their poppies from Germany. Major Howson was forced to find a bigger site, an old brewery in Richmond.

“The poppy is still the number one charitable emblem today,” says Bill Kay, who has been the general manager for nine years. “It stirs the imagination and is very dear to people’s hearts. This year, because our soldiers are once again paying the ultimate sacrifice, the demand for poppies has been especially high.” The factory has made 41 million poppies, 100,000 wreaths and about 900,000 crosses, with a fundraising target of more than £31 million to go towards the legion’s work supporting ex-servicemen and their families. In 2006 the order was 36 million poppies; last year it was 40 million. In the aftermath of the Second World War it was 45 million.

Production begins during the preceding autumn. Poppies were once individually stitched and some of the silk or cotton flowers were finished with a sprig of perfumed rosemary. Now the paper or fabric leaf and petals are cut in the factory and clipped to a plastic stem.

The wreath that the Queen will lay at the Cenotaph tomorrow took one and a half weeks to assemble. A team of three people works on the most prestigious commissions as the intricate designs require everything to be handmade from scratch.

The factory now has only 42 staff. Some can produce thousands of flowers a day. There is a network of 80 home contributors, mostly widows and widowers, who live near by. Kay and his team take the component parts to each house and collect the assembled poppies a few weeks later. Shaun Johnson is the factory’s most recent recruit. He served with the Royal Artillery for nearly 11 years until 1994 when he injured his hand in an accident and began suffering flashbacks to his two tours of Northern Ireland.

“I was struggling with severe depression and trying to keep my new job in immigration,” he says. He was only recently found to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and after a period of struggling to balance employment and therapy, he eventually found a job at the Poppy Factory through the Regular Forces Employment Association.

“Making the poppies is incredibly therapeutic,” he says. “Everyone here has similar backgrounds and we know we’re working for a great cause — for our brothers and sisters.”