In honour of our national flower "The Red Rose" I thought my post today should celebrate this wonderous bloom.
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But first of all just a thought about how times have changed, when I was 3 or 4 and we lived over a flower shop, I remember people queueing up to buy their red rose buttonholes I recall acres of red roses to rival any Valentines Day in our cool room, (I always wanted to dive in and lie on top of them like on a lilo in a pool of red roses).
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Later on when I was about 17 I worked for my parents in one of their shops in Manchester, we literally made 100's of red rose buttonholes for all of the Solicitors, Bank Managers, MD's, CEO's and so on, we had 300 of them delivered to The Masonic Halls alone each year, I was always sent out into St Annes Square with a huge basket of them to sell.
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Everyone who was anyone wore a Red Rose in celebration of St George. When I first came to The Fylde 20 years ago we would deliver to all the G.P's, Head Teachers & Ministers and Funeral Directors all over the Fylde everyone wanted them delivered by 9:00am so we started delivering at 6:00am to get them there on time.
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Now I'm 44, 40 years on from when my little story began, we sold 10 red roses today for buttonholes, to more elderly gentlemen, we gave away the rest, which is very sad, on St Patrick's Day however we sold more than 80 units of Shamrock and we're not even in Ireland! On St David's day we sold 100's of Daffodils and again we're not in Wales!
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I do feel very patriotic, I am English and I am wearing my Red Rose with pride as are all of the Flower Design Team, I feel we should try to respect and uphold our traditions, in my lifetime St George has never been celebrated by a Bank Holiday but it has always been marked by wearing a Red Rose.
