Nonnie if, by the 'huge house next to Richmond Park', you are referring to the Royal Star and Garter Home for ex-service people, that was sold long ago and has now been rebuilt as luxury flats with lowest price approaching 1 million pounds. So I guess they've already used that money.
I prefer the white poppies which you can get from the Peace Pledge Union. The red ones seem to have lost their meaning somehow. They used to be about quiet remembrance but now I feel November 11th has become something of a fetishism of the military. War is not a glorious thing.