Firstly I would like to say I wholeheartedly support the Poppy Campaign, what it commemorates and the good the funds do for others.
A little man, who must be in his 90’s comes and knocks on the door every year for donations in return for a poppy in a true small village style.
I may wear it, I may not but if I don’t it lives on my notice board in my office for a while to remind me why my Father and elder brothers risked their lives for our freedom.
Freedom comes in many forms. One of those is freedom of choice.
Every year we see more and more people publicly slated for not wearing a poppy or refusing to wear a poppy.
Surely we should respect those people’s beliefs, choices and decisions, to do what they feel is right for them?
There is so much peer pressure now to be seen ‘to do the right thing’ that for me it just serves to water down the support the whole Poppy Campaign gets.
How many of those wearing them are doing it because they don’t want to face the backlash instead of for the genuine reason it is meant to be?
Political correctness has gone too far.
Pat
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I buy one, every year, it gets worn for a few days and gets lost.
Never felt any pressure to wear it, never had any reaction because I haven't.
Was at a reception at the FCO last week, wore one then because I thought it would be expected.
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I rarely wear one. For the first time in ages I actually bought one from a seller whilst at the M62 Services yesterday. There was a slight pang of guilt that I hadn't paid for one in ages and I actually wanted one for an event on Sunday. Like Zero I used to buy paper ones but lost them soon after. I really don't think about them beyond, I care little whether people wear them or not of whatever colour.
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I don’t think people really care one way or the other. Any “controversy†is manufactured by the likes of the Daily Mail.
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Never worn one.
Have bought them for my 3 kids most years at their request.
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I wear one most years most of the time. Sometimes forgot to wear or buy it. Nearly always stick a few quid in, I think the RBL do very good work.
I don't like all this rubbish about every single person on tv is expected to wear one or there's some sort of outrage. I find it all too silly, people trying to see who can be the most fake patriotic.
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Usually buy something, Poppy, wristband or badge. May or may not wear it.
I think there is pressure on broadcasters and their interviewees to wear one. Didn't Channel 4 news's Jon Snow write about it?
It's not just Daily Mail. I've seen stuff on Facebook about people not wearing and their supposed motives and that's as somebody who favours left/liberal memes over those listing to right and to compliance with social mores.
And that's before the rubbish about places where they're supposedly not allowed.
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Went to a 'breakfast briefing' in the city this morning, plenty on view but by no means universal.
Mine was at home on the hall shelf where it has been since I got it. I'll put it on to walk down to the war memorial on Sunday morning.
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I wear one but have never witnessed any hostility towards those who don't. However I try and re-use last year's if I can find it, to save yet more plastic being wasted. I always give a tenner to the collection.
There is a bloke in the next street who always wears a white poppy. I never understood it until I read up on it, a symbol of peace apparently. I quite admire him, I am sure he faces some hostility due to misunderstanding.
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>> I
>> quite admire him, I am sure he faces some hostility due to misunderstanding.
>>
It's all curiously like the white feather stuff at the start of the War - singling out people who for moral or other reasons chose to be different.
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I was in town this morning and a brass band was playing in a square. They stopped just before 11:00 and as the nearby church clock chimed, around 100 people stood, silently. The last post was played and those people got on with their day. Very dignified and low key.
I found this recording of the guns falling silent poignant: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6366499/WW1-recording-captures-second-chaos-war-stopped-dead.html#
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"I was in town this morning"
My wife and I walked into Bury (St Edmunds) this morning for the service by the war memorial. A very large crowd had gathered and the parade included detachments from local air bases, council representatives, ATC, the local pipe band etc.
As I glanced around me, I noticed that I was just about the only bloke who took his hat off for prayers*/the silence/national anthems of UK/USA. I suspect that respect has gone out of fashion.
* I am not religious.
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>> who took his hat off for prayers*/the silence/national anthems of UK/USA. I suspect that respect
>> has gone out of fashion.
You dont have to take your hat off to show respect.
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"You dont have to take your hat off to show respect."
Only if it's nailed on.
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Taking your hat off at events is one of those things that came into fashion and has largely fallen out of fashion. Like many things.
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>> "You dont have to take your hat off to show respect."
>>
>> Only if it's nailed on.
So, the Queen, the Royal Family, every sailor, airman, soldier, officer and noncom were all showing a lack of respect this morning at the cenotaph?
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Very few ceremonial reasons you would have to doff headress. Can't remember what they are off the top of my head.
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Off the top of my head (see what I did there!)
Male civilians remove headgear for prayers, national anthems, last post etc.
Female civilians do not.
Service personnel do not (IIRC), except three cheers for HM.
I am open to correction on any of the above.
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"I am open to correction on any of the above."
That is correct. There are additional rules, e.g. service personnel have to remove their hat when brought before a senior officer on charges.
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It hasn't completely gone out of fashion Haywain, Ian wears a hat, most of the time and even at work.
He removes it if a funeral cortege passes by and it would certainly have been removed this morning had we have been at a ceremony.
It's what he's always been brought up to do and it feels right for him....and he's only 46 yrs old.
To those who argue the rights and wrongs, surely respect is something everyone shows in their own personal way?
Pat
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>>To those who argue the rights and wrongs, surely respect is something everyone shows in their own personal way?
Quite right, it matters little how one pays respect, as long as one does.
It is not so much those who do not show respect that I dislike, it is those who show disrespect that bother me.
Insofar as the Poppy is concerned then, as the Legion says, the correct way to wear it is with pride and from personal choice.
Though I do like old fashioned displays of respect. I was walking through the church yesterday with 14 Ambassadors and DHMs accompanied by a colour party of ex & serving, all of whom are expert at displays of respect and protocol. It's nice to see it done properly.
Always interesting to see which Ambassadors/DHMs show up from which Embassies, and which do not. Pretty consistent actually, but surprising.
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> Always interesting to see which Ambassadors/DHMs show up from which Embassies, and which do not.
>> Pretty consistent actually, but surprising.
>>
>>
It wasn't a bit drizzly was it?
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Sunny, blue skies, pleasant warmish day, 25 degrees or thereabouts
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>> It's what he's always been brought up to do and it feels right for him....and
>> he's only 46 yrs old.
>>
I wonder whether he doffs his hat when greeting a lady, or indeed any woman, merely touches the brim, or doesn't bother?
At school we were taught to make a kind of half-hearted effort, a cross between raising one's cap and just touching the brim. But as I never wear hats I suppose I have lost the instinct.
I remember my mother being taken aback in about 1970 walking with her sister in her village where she was almost a sort of lady of the manor, when a hatless villager actually touched his forelock. I don't suppose anyone does that now.
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>> At school we were taught to make a kind of half-hearted effort, a cross between
>> raising one's cap and just touching the brim.
>>
At one of my schools, King's School Rochester, we wore straw boaters. Due to the school being closely linked to Rochester cathedral, not only did we have to go there every Friday for a service, but were obliged, when in school uniform, to raise our boaters to all members of the C. of E. clergy whom we encountered in the street.
As day boys we were also forbidden from attending the cinema during term time!
In those days parents tended to support school rules strictly :-)
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I went to the village war memorial. Proceedings led by vicar, although I don't see religion as necessary. The vic put both regular misquotes into Binyon's verse. Scouts/guides laid the wreaths.
I didn't wear a hat. Poppy concealed by coat, no objections received.
We watched the Peter Jackson film last night, or at least the first half. I hope it continues to be shown, it seems a good way to perpetuate remembrance.
The Moral Maze on the wireless this week was a debate about whether it is time to stop remembering and start forgetting. I think remembrance is probably a good thing where wars are concerned.
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I’m not sure that remembering wars is such a good thing in the long term. Probably better to let them drift gently into the past like all the other wars we no longer commemorate.
Who now remembers all the dead of the English Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars
Remembrance days do nothing to prevent wars despite all the words uttered in that hope and indeed not letting past divisions slip into obscurity has done nothing for places like Northern Ireland and Serbia.
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This type of remembrance will continue on as long as people want it to. You can't stop people from doing this sort of thing or force them to either.
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>> Who now remembers all the dead of the English Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars
>>
Well of course there weren't so many of them then - I recall most of the Civil War battles were just skirmishes in continental terms.
The navy still celebrates Trafalgar Day, I think? (ON can confirm)
Although of course that celebrating a victory (and a deliverance) rather than remembrance.
A new factor is that the original Armistice Day concept has been adapted, firstly to cover WWII, then all subsequent wars. So Remembrance has acquired an on-going significance and role no longer linked in future to the Great War itself. That memory obviously will fade naturally, to be replaced and replenished.
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>> Well of course there weren't so many of them then - I recall most of
>> the Civil War battles were just skirmishes in continental terms.
>>
In absolute terms you are correct but the percentage of the population who died in the Civil Wars from death and disease was far higher than the equivalent percentage of First World War deaths.
See you’ve forgotten all about them.
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"See you've forgotten all about them."
Memories of the first world war and subsequent wars are aided by photography and digital record keeping.
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I'm sure I've heard that they are planning to bulldoze and build a shopping complex (I think) on the Battle of Bosworth field (??war dead), objections from the historians and community have fallen on deaf ears as it's seen as progress.... so we do forget and money talks!
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Not a shopping facility but a facility for testing driverless cars apparently
A horse, a horse my kingdom for a horse.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Mon 12 Nov 18 at 20:26
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Cheers, I knew it was something big, but still, being built over an historic landmark where there are probably bodies laying?
Saying that I guess where the French battlefront is it's being used by farmers so there must be a process in place for the reburial if they are found?
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>> Cheers, I knew it was something big, but still, being built over an historic landmark
>> where there are probably bodies laying?
>>
>> Saying that I guess where the French battlefront is it's being used by farmers so
>> there must be a process in place for the reburial if they are found?
There is, and they have an ongoing process for picking up and dealing with the hundreds of tons of ordnance that is dug up every year.
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>> I'm sure I've heard that they are planning to bulldoze and build a shopping complex
>> (I think) on the Battle of Bosworth field (??war dead), objections from the historians and
>> community have fallen on deaf ears as it's seen as progress.... so we do forget
>> and money talks!
For hundreds of years, no gave a monkeys about Bosworth Field, its been ploughed for hundreds of years, has nothing like the original topography, I doubt any families can trace their lineage back to falling at that location, so its merely modern day sentimentality
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www.telegraph.co.uk/news/interactive-graphics/11269889/Richard-III-graphic-royal-family-tree.html
Almost certainly an indirect descendant but there again we are all likely to be some sort of distant cousin of everyone who fought at Bosworth.
Here’s an interesting random fact. Around 28,000 men died at the battle of Towton.in 1461. Reckoned to be about 1% of the entire English population of the time. The bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil.
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Of course depending upon your point of view this guy should/could be our king..
Franz, Duke of Bavaria (Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria Herzog von Bayern)
The current heir-general of King James II of England and VII of Scotland, Franz is, as Francis II, considered – by Jacobites – to be the legitimate heir of the Stuart kings of England, Scotland, Ireland and France. A spokesman has said that "the Duke generally does not comment on issues concerning his familiar relationship to the Royal House of Stuart."
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Today I was in a yurt next to the Bisley ranges. At 10:59 it sounded like (and felt) like being in Afghanistan. At 11:00 am a canon went off, and the guns really did go quiet.
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I watched the events at the cenotaph on tv, I normally do. I don't usually go to an actual ceremony, it's not really my thing.
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It was odd not seeing Queenie laying the wreath on behalf of the Nation.
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We were singing at the Llandudno ceremony. I would have probably gone to the local town if we hadn't.
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>> It was odd not seeing Queenie laying the wreath on behalf of the Nation.
2nd year on the trot. Charlie is slowly taking over a lot of her duties.
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>> >> It was odd not seeing Queenie laying the wreath on behalf of the Nation.
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>> 2nd year on the trot. Charlie is slowly taking over a lot of her duties.
>>
Plus The Duke of Edinburgh now giving it a miss.
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Dont think Phil is going to see 2020 arrive.
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Whilst I admit he is looking increasingly cadaverous Z, he was feeling well and fit enough at 97 to be out in Windsor Great Park carriage driving yesterday.
I would risk a few bob on him making his century if I was a betting man...but I'm not..so I won't.
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Life expectancy at 97 is 2.4 years.
No telegram for Phil...
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>> Whilst I admit he is looking increasingly cadaverous Z, he was feeling well and fit
>> enough at 97 to be out in Windsor Great Park carriage driving yesterday.
Then he was fit enough to be at the Cenotaph, and should have been there. You can retire from a lot of royal stuff, that one you cant. Specially not an ex WW2 navy man.
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I've just come across this article. All about the very last battles of the war, comes from an American perspective but still interesting.
www.historynet.com/world-war-i-wasted-lives-on-armistice-day.htm
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This is interesting too I think - an example of how incorrect as opposed to false news can spread:
www.centenarynews.com/article/100-years-ago---breaking-news-of-the-false-armistice
I had been wondering about the possible relevance of time zones in the commemorations.
The 11 am was of course French time, which I think was, in 1918, the same as British time, ie GMT as it was November.
But it's obviously not the same time around the world, which always makes things like VE Day etc a little more complicated. Nehru's moving proclamation "Now, at the midnight hour, the time has come ...." must have been Indian time, meaning the Empire officially ended 5 1/2 hours ahead, or the next day, for us ?
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My wife and I used to sell poppies door to door for over 20 years, until the local Royal British Legion closed down.
It was a fascinating social experiment in that it was impossible to predict a homeowners generosity by their house/car/clothes they were wearing when they opened the door. But some of the apparently poorest were often the most generous.
Perversely, I never wear a poppy.
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I used to do door to door selling for charity events connected with the Round Table I was in. It was surprising how many people said "Oh, I' m away that weekend" even before you'd got as far as telling them the date. So polite :-)
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>>The 11 am was of course French time, which I think was, in 1918, the same as British time, ie GMT as it was November.
Not sure I follow that. At that time France was using the same approach to clock changes as the UK, so it would have been one hour different. I don't remember the dates exactly, but I think France adopted it in 1908, dropped it in 1920, adopted it in 1940, dropped it in the 50s and adopted it again in the 70s.
Or something like that. I think.
Remembrance is marked here at 11:00, which is in fact 2pm in the UK.
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It's just that I read that Western Front time was French time - a bit inconvenient if it wasn't.
The Germans of course kept their own time, hence contributing to the mix-up.
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"The Germans of course kept their own time, hence contributing to the mix-up."
This is why the EU was invented.
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>> >>The 11 am was of course French time, which I think was, in 1918, the
>> same as British time, ie GMT as it was November.
>>
>> Not sure I follow that. At that time France was using the same approach to
>> clock changes as the UK, so it would have been one hour different. I don't
>> remember the dates exactly, but I think France adopted it in 1908, dropped it in
>> 1920, adopted it in 1940, dropped it in the 50s and adopted it again in
>> the 70s.
Pace your observation, Wikipedia states: In 1911, Metropolitan France adopted GMT+0 (the solar time of Greenwich) as its official time, and used it until 1940 (with GMT+1 used during the summers from 1916 to 1940).
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Just saw "They Shall Not Grow Old" on iPlayer.
Amazing piece of history and shocking that people still think of going to war.
The colorisation is amazing and for want of better description, "brings it to life".
Perhaps all politicians should be made to watch this before sending our young off to war.
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So I have been out recovering collection boxes for the last couple of days and have been helping to count.
$3.5million pesos where the smallest coin is 10 pesos. That took some serious amount of counting.
Many things rewarding about this but I cannot help wonder why I also have;
$20,000 Colombian Pesos (£5)
$1 Argentinian Peso (2p)
75c Euro (65p)
$1 Uruguayan peso (3p)
75c US (80p)
£2 GBP
Two folded up business cards
A button
A bottle top
Why? Ok, I guess the Colombian note was a genuine wish to help, but the rest?
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The Poppy Campaign - Zero
