THE streets of Southampton took up a rather pretty appearance this week as attractive ladies clutching boxes of roses filled the roadways and thoroughfares in the town as Alexandra Day blossomed across the country.

Across the district there were many masculine buttonholes and many feminine dresses sporting a simple wild rose, whether it was natural or artificial, as few could resist such a worthy cause or the appeal of the young ladies as they asked passers-by “Wear a wild rose in honour of her Majesty Queen Alexandra?”

Near everyone encountered duly obliged as it was a simple and unostentatious thing to do, yet both decorative and practical – the practical reason being that all the charitable donations provided would go towards the urgently needed funds of the various local hospitals, which the charity event was collecting for.

In 1915 Alexandra Day was observed a little later in London and the provinces than previous years, which was due to the difficulty of obtaining sufficient roses for the purpose owing to the abnormal demand. This is the third year that Alexandra Day had been celebrated in Southampton, and this year there was more fair vendors of the simple flower in the streets than had ever been seen before.

There was no lack of willing workers for the scheme and a little army of young ladies, numbering at least 250, each with a pretty green basket filled with wild roses and a ribboned collecting tin, into which the purchaser was beguiled to place as many coins as he or she chose, were on foot to way-lay the town’s folk going to business of work long before the ordinary householder had finished breakfast.

Some young ladies were on point duty with their flowers before six o’clock in the morning and continued at their posts throughout the day as drizzling rain, which on more than several occasions developed into a regular downpour to render their task an uncomfortable one but by no means dampened their enthusiasm. By noon it was estimated that the stock of flowers had been practically exhausted by the people of the town.

A buttonhole could be obtained for the price of a modest penny, but a higher price was not disdained by the fair vendors, and it is recorded at the time that one gentleman outside the Dock gates willingly gave a sovereign for a small white rose.