Wearing a white poppy

My son and his lovely girlfriend have been visiting from Prague where they both live.
His girlfriend had never visited the UK before, she is from Azerbaijan.
She wore a poppy and visited a local church to see the remembrance display.
She was so touched that we take time to remember the brave men and women that have fought for our freedom.
It made me feel proud to be British.
I will always wear a red poppy with pride.
The British Legion and the Commonwealth War graves Commision are charities I will always support.

I wore a white poppy for many years, bought from the Peace Pledge Union, saying whenever challenged that tho I was proud of the war dead I didn't think they could be very proud of us and our profits from the arms trade.
I now realise tho that the longevity of the PPU (may have the name slightly wrong myself) isn't widely known and that white poppies are seen as yah-booing. So I now think it would be better to bend with the wind and choose another day.

I don't object to anyone wearing a red poppy. I would prefer them to be aware of its history and of the way the RBL has changed. It's amazing though how many object to the white poppy the money from which of course is used to develop peace initiatives something which I think the WW1 dead would prefer to militarism.

Trisher, you cannot know who is aware & who is not.
But it’s is good that facts are now more available,
I wear my poppy for the young men who never had the chance to understand the whys & wherefores, rights or wrongs .

I don't wear a poppy for any particular reason other than for my great uncle who died on the Somme. I will remember him and his ilk wherever they might have been. I especially would not like to be seen to wear one to promote any political opinion or protest.

What Bluebell said.
Live and let live. Wear your red or white poppy if you want to. Don't wear a poppy if you prefer not to.
At this time of year I think of my British father who fought in Africa, my English family who lived through the blitz, my Italian family who risked their lives to save a young Jewish boy.
The many, many young men and women of the former empire and those who escaped from occupied territories volunteered to fight and support us as well as those from other parts of the world and of course all the civilians who suffered.
You don't need to fasten a poppy to your chest to show you remember all the victims of conflict, wherever it may be. You can do it quietly, at any time.

BlueBelle I couldn't agree with a post more. The constant carping of I'm right therefore you are wrong on just about every subject under the sun, is utterly depressing, but especially so where the subject is how we remember those who have died in conflict.

Well said, BlueBelle.

And very well said Chewbacca

Agree with above.

Poppy

[white poppy]

I do not think that people on here are "arguing" in a derogatory use of that word. They are just setting out their reasoning for their choice of poppy or none.

I choose mostly not to wear one at all, but when I do it is white. Like many others I am not comfortable giving money to an organisation that accepts funding from arms sellers.

Oh, Bluebelle, yes. I do agree.
I have been away from Gransnet for some weeks, and on returning, noticed the unpleasant, minatory tone some prolific posters have adopted, no matter what the subject of the post.

Beautifully written sentiments.

Ditto eazybee. I've been absent for a while too and noticed the subtle change.

I have just returned from our village Remembrance Sunday Service at the war memorial It was so moving, dignified nd a very fitting tribute to those who died in war.

The British Legion were in attendance as were some young airmen and their commander from the local airbase. The names of the local boys who lost their lives in WW1 were read out by our vicar and it was so poignant.

Let’s not argue about poppies and money. If it weren’t for the British Legion and other similar charities, God knows how those injured and bereaved would get support in any other way.

Well, it's a good job our men did fight and win the Second World War trisher. Heaven knows what kind of life we'd be living now. It's no wonder the British Legion didn't accept the white poppy.

The poppy for remembrance is so much more than a "blooming symbol".

Gonegirl the white poppy was proposed by women in 1933 that's when the RBL rejected it. The women who started it had all had relatives who had died in WW1 are you saying no-one should ever try to promote peace? Or that the civilian dead of wars (and they vastly outnumber serving personnel) should just be forgotten?

And they didn't want the red poppy abandoned just for their poppy to stand beside the red.

How would wearing a white poppy have avoided the Second World War? The women should have invented their own symbol. A white lily perhaps.

They were trying to turn the poppy into an anti-war symbol. Just not possible when Hitler was around.

Hands off our red poppy.

The red poppy was THEIR symbol.They regarded it as the memorial to the men they had seen needlessly sacrifice their lives on the battle fields of Europe. They regarded it as a promise that no-one would ever again enter such conflict. When it was used by the BL to promote what they saw as militarism they could I suppose have begun a campaign of arguing. Instead they created their own version. White poppies were first produced in 1933 by the Co-operative Women's Guild, made up largely of women who had lost husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and friends in World War One. They were worried by the growing militarisation of Remembrance events and the detachment between the red poppy and the need to work for peace. The Guild's General Secretary, Eleanor Barton, called for renewed commitment "to that 'Never Again' spirit that was strong in 1918, but seems to grow weaker as years go on
They may have been wrong in their estimation of what might happen but you have no right to question their commitment and the sheer horror of living through a period where a whole generation of men were needlessly sacrificed.