The poppy thing I recall, I remember old WW1 vets handing 'em out. When they all died out, it sort of went away. I haven't seen it in forever, even at the Legion.
Pals battalion... A unit full of friends who joined to serve together. They stopped doing it in WW1 because entire units were being wiped out at once and the towns they came from basically lost entire generations of young men. The army today does the "buddy program" where friends can join and be placed in the same unit, but everyone I ever talked to about it including myself says, "that's the last time I ever saw that motherfucker". Yep, ain't seen Scott's ass since 2000.
Welsh miners, right? To undermine and place demo under the German lines?
Tanks were initially developed under the British navy and Churchill was Lord Admiral at the time I think. And that's how they got the nomenclature. "Tank" was also supposed to disguise the true nature of the machine. Germany sorta continued in WW2 when they started designing the land cruiser. It used U boat engines and even had the main gun from the Gisenaut (sp?) destroyer. Never built, but it would've been cool.
Horsepower... I'll guess Rolls Royce? Including the designs built and assembled here by Ford.