I am in my 40s and I remember when I was a kid that folk would buy and wear poppies at this time of the year to commemorate those in the two wars.
Fast forward to now where you do not see anyone on TV without one, no matter what their nationality is , and I am sure none of them are actually putting a pound into a box in return for the poppy. Soaps that are filmed weeks in advance all have their poppies.
Its as if it would be the hugest of errors if there is no poppy worn.
I have heard a lot of debate from those who do or don't want to wear it and coming from the West of Scotland, there is as usual the unique slant on things here as it is sadly used for points scoring.
Can anyone older than me point me in the direction of when this turned "large scale" where TV, football strips etc all were adorned with poppies? Was it after Falklands?
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I don't know. But it seems to me that the wearing and displaying of poppies grew significantly about the same period that Red Nose Day caught people's imagination.
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My daughter has been (with our grandchildren) been to London today, primarily to see the poppies at the Tower.
Her comment:-
"The poppies were fantastic but I felt that seeing the cenotaph complete with wreaths laid this morning, and the last bits of Remembrance going on, was more important and more poignant."
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It should be a personal choice to wear one on TV, not a policy driven by fear of a Daily Mail outcry. If you live your life int he public eye, sure you should be prepared to explain your stance one way or the other, but it is at the end of the day a personal choice.
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I wear one. As do the girls.
I do agree though, that for public figures its the risk of a Daily Mail wail which forces them to always wear one.
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I usually buy one and wear it for a few days (they always disappear)
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Funnily enough one of my acquaintances asked me today why I was not wearing a poppy. I have put money into two collecting boxes this year. Might be some subliminal thing going on in my tiny brain. My old man was on several Arctic convoys, PQ 18 for one, and counted himself lucky to get to/ from Murmansk several times, plus many Atlantic convoys in the Merchant Navy. And my uncle served under Bill Slim in Burma. Sadly I cannot remember if either of them wore poppies.
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Just remembered he was on the SS Empire Baffin. Still got lots of B & W photos he took in the loft
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There seems to be a trend these days, particularly on social media, for the easily offended to make a huge fuss about any company, organisation or individual who for whatever reason either does not wear a poppy or does not when questioned express wholehearted support for the appeal. Quite often these campaigns snowball on the premise of something which turns out to be totally untrue, and my guess is that a lot of them start with absolutely no basis in fact but are promoted as a means of deliberately damaging the public profile of the company or individual concerned. They inevitably peter out after a day or two unless the more hysterical sections of the press cotton on to the story and try to fan the flames, but by then the damage is inevitably already done.
The real tragedy of this is that companies become reluctant to get involved with "good causes" because of the risk of adverse publicity, thereby actually reducing the amount of money gathered by the charities concerned.
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Didn't it start when we began to have soldiers coming home dead or injured from ill-advised military adventures, and we needed to regard them as heroes, rather than be sorry because they've been horribly exploited by politicians? In effect, wind up the patriotism to blind us to appalling errors.
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I lost two, having given generously for the first and a bit less generously for the second. But the second one turned up intact in the car so that was all right. I wonder if it will survive till tomorrow?
The Tower moat thing is a colossal bit of cheeky modern British kitsch. I don't know whether to laugh, feel proud or hide my head in shame. A bit of all three probably.
Do I want one of the ceramic poppies as a memento? I don't think so. Can one get them for 18 quid or is that a delusion?
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I have one on order for my Son and I think it was £25, but I paid for it in August.
He has a great interest in WW1 and will treasure it forever.
Yesterday while having lunch with them at Brampton he was bemoaning the fact he's tried to buy one a fortnight ago and they were all sold out.
We both feigned ignorance of the fact they could be bought and hastily changed the subject, so now...will it arrive for Christmas, I wonder?
Pat
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>> I have one on order for my Son and I think it was £25, but
>> I paid for it in August.
>> He has a great interest in WW1 and will treasure it forever.
Hmm. I wonder?
>> Yesterday while having lunch with them at Brampton he was bemoaning the fact he's tried
>> to buy one a fortnight ago and they were all sold out.
Probably because you took him to Brampton, rather than that nice pub in St. Neots that I pointed you at.
>> We both feigned ignorance of the fact they could be bought and hastily changed the
>> subject, so now...will it arrive for Christmas, I wonder?
Why didn't you tell him that there is a poppy on order?
What is it with some people and this childish delight in SURPRISES?
>> Pat
>>
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>>What is it with some people and this childish delight in SURPRISES? <<
Some people LIKE a childish delight in surprises Duncan...you don't, that's fine.
It stems from a childhood of wishing for something but knowing you won't get it because it's too expensive/not practical/unsuitable, only to find you get it after all.
Get out of bed the wrong side this morning Mr Grumpy?
Pat
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>> Get out of bed the wrong side this morning Mr Grumpy?
>>
>> Pat
>>
Not at all.
I am always like this.
I don't like surprises. I had a significant birthday recently. Although Lady Duncan knows me well enough, I did stress to her that I didn't want any surprises. "If you are thinking of doing something, tell me about it and I will decide if I want it".
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>>>> We both feigned ignorance of the fact they could be bought and hastily changed the
>> subject, so now...will it arrive for Christmas, I wonder?
I like that Pat...I believe the term is 'chapeau'.
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Thanks WP, we were feeling rather pleased with ourselves until Duncan rained on our parade....;)
Pat
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>> Thanks WP, we were feeling rather pleased with ourselves until Duncan rained on our parade....;)
>>
>> Pat
>>
I hope I didn't cause you any offence, Pat.
However - if you post on an internet discussion forum, you should expect people to discuss your postings. Some will be positive criticisms, some will be negative.
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Not at all Duncan, I have broader shoulders than that.
I just felt a bit 'deflated' which was needed after Sunday Lunch at a decent pub!
Pat
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>> I have one on order for my Son and I think it was £25..................
>> We both feigned ignorance of the fact they could be bought and hastily changed the
>> subject, so now...will it arrive for Christmas, I wonder?
>>
>> Pat
>>
Has your poppy arrived yet, Pat?
Link to - sorry - D**ly M**l
tinyurl.com/nvdezt6
The organisers got those nice people at Yodel to deliver the poppies, it seems...
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That's spooky...I tracked it this morning and it hasn't been despatched yet, but doing most of my shopping online I have my little Yodel bloke trained well.
He leaves it in the greenhouse on the staging and if the door is open, leaves it open or closes it if it is closed!
Pat
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>> Didn't it start when we began to have soldiers coming home dead or injured from
>> ill-advised military adventures, and we needed to regard them as heroes, rather than be sorry
>> because they've been horribly exploited by politicians? In effect, wind up the patriotism to blind
>> us to appalling errors.
I suspect there may well be an element of that. The past two governments have certainly done much to destroy the morality and morale of our armed forces built up over the previous 400 years.
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" The past two governments have certainly done much to destroy the morality and morale of our armed forces built up over the previous 400 years."
Governments have also conspired to give away the country for which these people fought; there is an element of guilt.
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I bought one but I would never wear it except at a parade or special service.
They should be worn only on Armistice Day.
They have unfortunately become just another bit of show-off bling, so I boycot them on principle.
It is curious that two diametrically opposite camps have each adopted the poppy as its emblem.
One side uses them to express support for the armed forces, to support our lads, likes to see a man in uniform selling them.
The other camp sees them as a symbol of the futility of war, the incompetence of the WW1 generals, almost as anti-army and pro peace-movement.
All they really say is look at me, I'm doing the right thing, my heart is in the right place, I'm PC.
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>> " The past two governments have certainly done much to destroy the morality and morale
>> of our armed forces built up over the previous 400 years."
>>
>> Governments have also conspired to give away the country for which these people fought;
Pray do expand on that? who has it now then?
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"Pray do expand on that?"
Let's not dwell too long on this, as the subject is 'poppies', but don't tell me that Brussels has no part in our laws and that e.g. UK Power Networks is owned by the UK.
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>> Let's not dwell too long on this, as the subject is 'poppies', but don't tell
>> me that Brussels has no part in our laws and that e.g. UK Power Networks
>> is owned by the UK.
Yet, the politicians who took us into Europe and were its leading advocates, Heath, Jenkins, Healey and Crosland all fought in WW2. Healey's MBE was for his war service, including Anzio, not from his political life.
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"Yet, the politicians who took us into Europe and were its leading advocates …………..."
ISTR in those days, it was called 'The Common Market'.
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>> I suspect there may well be an element of that. The past two governments have
>> certainly done much to destroy the morality and morale of our armed forces built up
>> over the previous 400 years.
In their defence both have had to operate without the constraint/certainty of the Cold War and with new dangers, albeit some of them overplayed. An earlier slippery slope, Vietnam, was avoided by Wilson and later Heath. Also, a 24/7 media circus follows everything without any of the deference that was a feature of conflicts up to/including Falklands.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 11 Nov 14 at 08:54
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>> Didn't it start when we began to have soldiers coming home dead or injured from
>> ill-advised military adventures, and we needed to regard them as heroes, rather than be sorry
>> because they've been horribly exploited by politicians?
That would be around the time of the First Crusade then. I don't think the RBL's been going that long.
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I can (but won't) list a long succession of British military adventures - Imperialism in action - which were ill conceived, unsuccessful and ended up with loads of dead and injured. On both sides.
And if the dumbos who decided to invade Afghanistan bothered to read history, they would know that three of them were in Afghanistan..
John Reid is a classic example of a politician going to war without obviously reading any history at all...In 2006 he said" We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing one shot because our job is to protect the reconstruction"
We used 4 million bullets by 2008 and left in 2014.
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Perhaps we should re-introduce white feathers, same era after all, for poppy-wearers to hand out contemptuously to people not wearing poppies?
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Mon 10 Nov 14 at 14:13
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>> Perhaps we should re-introduce white feathers, same era after all, for poppy-wearers to hand out contemptuously to people not wearing poppies?>>
What, people like the monarch, you mean?
She didn't wear a poppy until yesterday!
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>> re-introduce white feathers, same era after all, for poppy-wearers to hand out contemptuously
Heh heh...
When still young and radical I too scorned all these warlike symbolisms. Anyone would have, given the jingoistic pap we were raised on, supercharged in a grim way by the second world war. I never wore poppies until I was 45 or more.
But little by little, almost against one's wishes, one slowly goes respectable. One realises that there was patriotism as well as jingoism, that war is hell and makes ordinary people do extraordinary things. Soldiers are often infuriated by the carp spouted on the home front, the casual implicit brutality of sham military discourse on the lips of ideologues and patriotic wives....
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 10 Nov 14 at 15:37
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Respectable folk, leaders of society, MPs and schoolteachers, civil servants like my father, always used to wear poppies in the season. Perhaps the season was shorter then.
Poppies are disapproved of by certain pacifists, dumb ones one can't help feeling. There was a campaign to promote white pacifist poppies a few years ago.
The ones I really like are the big purple and white opium poppies that were growing wild in the vegetable garden at the other end here when I first came here forty or fifty years ago. If you scored their seed pods in late summer they oozed milky fluid that shrank and turned brown and sticky. Collect a small knob of that on your finger and you can smoke it. A bit messy and finicky but it wouldn't take long.
I could never be bothered though believe it or not. Didn't like opiates even proper opium. Later the opium poppies were completely exterminated by some hysterical carphound, wild rumours no doubt. People are such idiots and hooligans.
Although handsome the opium poppy blooms were a bit big and fat for a buttonhole. You'd look like Oscar Wilde and rude urchins would shout 'Mister! Where's yer lobster?'
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>> Respectable folk, leaders of society, MPs and schoolteachers, civil servants like my father, always used to wear poppies in the season.
Perhaps there are more poppies abroad than there used to be after all. I'd forgotten that these days every Tom Dick and Harry is a leader of society.
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>> Didn't it start when we began to have soldiers coming home dead or injured from
>> ill-advised military adventures, and we needed to regard them as heroes, rather than be sorry
>> because they've been horribly exploited by politicians? In effect, wind up the patriotism to blind
>> us to appalling errors.
>>
I started reading your post and was getting in to 'avin a go mode when I re-read it properly.
Excellent post Sir. I always wear a Poppy on something or other and do put a fiver (ish) in the pot.
I've just finished reading Harry Patchs' book and he says something about giving the Politicians guns and let them sort it out rather than supporting legalised mass murder. Something in that.
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I am increasingly of the frame of mind to not wear a poppy ..purely because of the 'expectation' that I should wear one.
I went down to my local town for the Remembrance ceremony.. and made sure we all wore one for that...but outside of that I haven't bothered.
I am incredibly supportive of our military and have previously visited both WW1 and WW2 battlefield sites and war graves, including doing an extra 200 mile round trip when on holiday in France, on my own, to visit the docks at St.Nazaire so I could see the site where a cousin died on Op Chariot in WW2 and was 'mentioned in dispatches', (sub Lieut Mark Fleming Rodier)...and laid wreathes on my two great uncles graves, who died in WW1 (privates Wallace and Cecil Algar).
They all died so that we could be free. Well I'm free..free to make my own mind up, not be leant on by anyone else.
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Well - just by chance Nicole and I had planned to go up to London today to see the poppies for the last time before they are taken down. We decided dusk would be a good time and we were there for the last post.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvQ4p6VHpxc
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I visited lat the end of last week and waited until the final reading of the 180 names and the last post.
Even getting there 45 minutes before I could not get to the front of the crowd.
I did manage to get some video of reading some of the names and also the last post.
Holding even a small video camera at arms length for all the names proved too much for me but i am very pleased to have captured it and can show SWMBO ( who could not come ) and send a copy to a friend in Maine.
A family in front of me had come to here a family name read out as one of the 180 that day.
Google search results do remind me of the earlier days of the scene when the poppies were starting to flow like blood across the moat. I am not aware if any time lapse shots were ever taken of the gradual development of the plantings.
My father served during WW1. I have his medals but have no real idea what his role was but I suspect he stayed in England as my mother told me nothing about his service.
One of his two WW1 medals says" The Great War for Civilisation 1914- 1919.
I believe this was with his other WW1 medal a "standard issue"
A search of the Forces War Records draws a blank so I guess his records were lost.
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>> to go up to London
>> today to see the poppies for the last time before they are taken down.
>>
I think that's totally different. That's a work of art, a very clever, moving and expressive one, and is saying something much deeper than the dubious false emotion shown by someone who feels he ought to wear a poppy because of peer pressure.
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>> I am increasingly of the frame of mind to not wear a poppy ..purely because
>> of the 'expectation' that I should wear one.
This is much the way that I feel. We bought two poppies, possibly from a door to door seller, I can't remember.
I think I wore mine only once.
Jon Snow feels that he shouldn't be pressured into wearing one, although I have the lurking suspicion that there is an element of grandstanding there.
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I think the main progenitor of the poppy moral blackmail meme is the BBC.
Far, far, in advance of Remembrance Sunday, it seems that every employee and every interviewee has had a poppy pinned on their apparel by the wardrobe department. It almost seems that were they to be featuring a male stripper, a poppy would be pinned to a protruding nipple.
It seems to me to be rank hypocrisy to force this upon so many people.
I would far rather that people who want to wear a poppy do so and those who do not (for whatever reason) are allowed to show up poppy-less.
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>> I think the main progenitor of the poppy moral blackmail meme is the BBC.
>>
I think that many people that wear the poppy - on other channels, not just the Beeb - don't have the strength to opt out. Many of them are pushing for careers in the lucrative world that is television and simply don't feel sufficiently secure to refuse to wear a poppy.
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>>Many of them are pushing for careers in the lucrative world that is television and simply don't feel sufficiently secure to refuse to wear a poppy.
Right. Because its not like there'd be a Daily Mail story the next day, outraged about the mean TV guy disrespecting "our lads", followed by a petition on Facebook etc. etc. before eventually somebody bows to pressure and fires his sorry a***.
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I wear a poppy because I choose to and to recognise that people to died to win us the freedom to have that choice.
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>> I wear a poppy because I choose to and to recognise that people to died
>> to win us the freedom to have that choice.
>>
I understand the sentiment, but really, they didn't.
The soldiers who died in their huge numbers in the Great War did so because they had no choice. Ultimately, if they fought for anything, it was so as not to let their comrades down.
The world did not become freer as a result. It became more totalitarian, and ushered in an era of brutal cynical dictators who were itching to have a replay.
WW2 was a different matter, and was I think really about freedom. But the poppy symbolism of WW1 was really just an inadequate and guilty apology for having thrown away civilisation and millions of lives for little if any benefit.
Kipling, as always, expressed it most succintly in his epitaph to his own dead son:
"And if they ask you why we died,
Say because our fathers lied"
But I appreciate that poppies have moved on, and have now become inclusive of later conflicts, and different and perhaps better motives.
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Tue 11 Nov 14 at 13:43
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There is truth in what you say, Cliff.
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>> The world did not become freer as a result. It became more totalitarian, and ushered
>> in an era of brutal cynical dictators who were itching to have a replay.
Very true
>> WW2 was a different matter, and was I think really about freedom.
It was really about, possibly for the first time ever, the fight against true evil.
>>But the poppy
>> symbolism of WW1 was really just an inadequate and guilty apology for having thrown away
>> civilisation and millions of lives for little if any benefit.
Indeed.
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>> I wear a poppy because I choose to and to recognise that people to died
>> to win us the freedom to have that choice.
As do my wife and I.
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The BBC does not supply poppies as a wardrobe item. However you will find a tray of them and a collecting tin at every BBC building reception.
Whether someone feels they should be wearing one on camera is officially up to the individual but I do concede peer pressure may make them a compulsory item.
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>> The BBC does not supply poppies as a wardrobe item.
Are you sure? I have been informed that there is someone in every/most studio/s who will pin a poppy on you unless you stop them.
>> Whether someone feels they should be wearing one on camera is officially up to the
>> individual but I do concede peer pressure may make them a compulsory item.
>>
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When a pundit or talking head is going to appear on TV a succession of young women powder their noses, straighten their ties and hair (if any), brush the dandruff off their shoulders, sponge the porridge stains off their lapels and generally straighten them up. The same probably happens to presenters but they are used to it.
Anyway, one of those young women probably pins a poppy on unless the victim objects.
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>> When a pundit or talking head is going to appear on TV a succession of young women powder their noses, straighten their ties and hair (if any), brush the dandruff off their shoulders, sponge the porridge stains off their lapels and generally straighten them up. The same probably happens to presenters but they are used to it.
TV studio lights radiate huge amounts of heat. The only time this happened to me I was also very anxious, and I have always been a person who perspired freely. The result was that huge beads of sweat rolled down my face, dripped from my chin and completely soaked the upper parts of my shirt. They kept having to stop the camera so that the young women could dart in fragrantly and mop my steaming brow. It wasn't an enjoyable experience but at least it showed me that realistically I couldn't plan on a glittering TV career despite a certain ability to rabbit on the hoof. You gotta have the physique and the constitution.
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Are you sure? I have been informed that there is someone in every/most studio/s who will pin a poppy on you unless you stop them.
Absolutely certain, see message 4 in www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/NF1951574?thread=8462004
I used to work for them and I know the poster Lee (folk in italics are BBC staff who are authorised to speak for the corporation).
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I think the last time I wore a poppy was when I was at primary school (compulsory according to the head master).
Haven't worn one since, and I don't intend to. It doesn't mean I show any less respect towards our war dead IMHO. I know some people (eg, my old headmaster) would beg to differ.
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I always buy one, and indeed wear it, but it always falls off. So I get my wife to pin it on, and it still falls off, and then I inevitably stab myself with the pin when I take my coat off.
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Used to buy one and wear it at work but didn't get round to it this year - no jacket lapel and fewer reminders like the ex service guys at both Northampton and Euston stations collecting.
The (it turned out soon to be abolished) Quango I last worked for was launched in early November 2007. There was a formal event with Minister and other worthies present and a snapper to take team pictures and individual mugshots for annual report and website etc. IIRC subjects were asked to remove poppies from latter so as not to 'date' the pictures too much.
Similarly, 20 or so years previously and in another office, we were subjected to to appearing in a training video*. Filming being in December the Xmas tree and decorations, into which staff had put own time, had to be removed to avoid dating.
* I believe copies still exist but mercifully it's not (yet) on You Tube.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 11 Nov 14 at 17:48
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. IIRC subjects were asked to remove poppies from latter so as not to 'date'
>> the pictures too much.
>>
>
I wonder why something like that would matter, if you did 'date' the pic as Nov?
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>> I wonder why something like that would matter, if you did 'date' the pic as
>> Nov?
It wouldn't have occurred to me either. The photographer raised it but I could sort of see point.
These were the 'stock' pictures we'd release if somebody outside wanted them, eg to illustrate a (specialist) press article written by the Chairman or a Member. I guess it would look odd for something published in Spring to be illustrated with a guy wearing a poppy.
Wasn't as if it cost anything to comply.
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>> Wasn't as if it cost anything to comply.
>>
Oh I know I don't think it's a major thing. I just thought it wouldn't matter to anyone if they had them on a pic whatever the time of the year. No drama.
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Was up visiting my 82 year old father tonight and asked him if we had any family in the two world wars. Apparently we did and had a chat about them.
Asked him about poppies - he advised they have never bought a poppy since one of their relatives was refused help from the Earl Haig fund after her husband was killed at war leaving her with 3 young kids. Apparently as she had extended family then they should look after her.
Decades on this still sticks in their mind.
That was before he went on a rant about how WW1 came about due to Queen Victorias kids and grandkids fighting amongst them? Had never heard that angle - must look into it more!
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>> That was before he went on a rant about how WW1 came about due to
>> Queen Victorias kids and grandkids fighting amongst them? Had never heard that angle - must
>> look into it more!
Well they were involved, sure, but I think its a bit simplistic to blame them!
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As my dad has got older things have became more black and white to him - there are few grey areas!
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This morning - the 12th - all the presenters on the BBC have spontaneously and unanimously decided to stop wearing poppies.
Strange that.
Obviously just a coincidence, of course.
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"This morning - the 12th - all the presenters on the BBC have spontaneously and unanimously decided to stop wearing poppies."
They are carefully ironed by the wardrobe dept and put away for next year.
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I was at the Tower last night and saw Sophie Raworth recording t 20:00 ish.
I could not see if she still had a poppy on ;-)
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Were you looking at her chest?
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You'd need a magnifying glass or telescope
Yeah - sexist!
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Poppies - No FM2R
