Marie Williams handknits thousands of poppies for Mackay Anzac Day

A reality TV show inspired Marie Williams to spin her yarn for Anzac Day, and it’s landed her poppies all over the globe.

Drum majors Kaitlyn Griffin and Taylor Fisher with Marie Williams who hand knitted poppies for the students to wear during Anzac Day parade in Brisbane. Photo: Mackay North State High

Marie Williams never got the chance to brag to her friends about having grandchildren, so instead she raves about her poppies.

Over the past 11 years she has hand sewn up to 7000 poppies herself, each of them taking about half an hour to make.

“I really love it and I have got so much out of it,” she said.

“I’m known as the ‘poppy lady’.”

Marie Williams has become known as the ‘Poppy lady’ around Mackay.

This year, the red and black badges will be pinned on the North Mackay State High marching band members during their Brisbane Anzac Day parade.

“The black buttons were the hardest thing to get because you’ll have to have a certain size,” she said.

Her poppies have also appeared in the Mackay Base Hospital, in the Pioneer Valley museum and the war memorial at a Mackay swimming pool.

In 2016, the former Governor of Queensland, Paul de Jersey travelled to Bretonneaux, France to lay poppies knitted by Ms Williams on the grave of Private Robert Kinnon, a Mackay local who died on the battlefield in 1916.

Paul and Kaye de Jersey laying down Marie Williams' hand sewn poppies on the grave of Private Robert Kinnon, 2016.

“I’ve got a handwritten note from him saying thank you for the poppies,” she said.

She has since given the remaining 600 or so poppies away to friends and schools around Mackay ahead of the 110th anniversary of the first word war.

While her father served in Port Macquarie writing morse code during the second world war, Ms Williams said she doesn’t have any profound connection to the date.

She was instead inspired by a Better Homes and Gardens episode to turn her yarn into poppies and the hobby has somehow managed to find its way into her schedule every year since.

An Anzac Day tribute displaying over 100 of Marie Williams’ hand-knitted poppies. Photo: Contributed

“I keep getting asked when I head down to the shopping centre, ‘are you still doing them Marie?’ and I just say no, I’m not doing them,” she said.

“But I can’t help myself. I just keep doing them.

“I sort of take it for granted.

“I’m so used to seeing them all the time but when people get them for the first time they are blown away with how they look.”

Originally published as Marie Williams handknits thousands of poppies for Mackay Anzac Day