I think it shows respect for people that thoroughly deserve that respect. I'm all for that.

There seems to be a race to wear the poppies first on tv - heaven help anyone who doesn't wear them! David Beckham was on the news just now being interviewed in LA wearing one - I guess they must have taken out a supply of the things to pin on him.

Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely right to honour the people who died so that you and I can live the way we do, but I can't abide this poppier than thou attitude. Wasn't there a hoo-ha inthe tabloids a while back about people not wearing the things on tv? I suppose I just resent people expecting me to behave in a certain way and make assumptions about me on very little evidence.

By the way, I have popped some money the tin and picked one up, but I refuse to wear it until Remembrance day.

Yes - Australia and New Zealand on April 25th every year. I think it is a good thing to do.

Personally, I think it is right to respect the sacrifice of so many people in the two world wars, because so many of them were so young and, importantly, so many of them were *made* to do it. For as long as the veterans, wives, friends, and the sons and daughters of those that died are still around - I will wear a poppy.

I do wonder tough, if we will get to a time when this will all be scaled down? I may be wrong here but from about 1960, it is fair to say that the British military personnel injured or killed in conflict were there through choice?

It doesn't make their deaths any less tragic, but those in the Falklands, Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan etc joined voluntarily. They knew that they could be called upon to put their lives on the line at any time.

It's not just the giving of money. For once, it really is the symbolism. 'Remembrance' is the word. And frankly I don't care whether they were volunteers or not. Like so many callings (coppers and teachers spring to mind), they do something we need doing, and something that I wouldn't want to do myself and I respect them for that.

And yet. I can't be doing with the self-serving, prominent MP-wearing poppy thing. Maybe they have learnt their lesson about wearing them too early but I still can't bring myself to wear one. No-one needs to know that I have given. They can just assume it's on my other coat.

I don't know why people are getting so bent out of shape about this,....there's no holier than thou about it, it's a small gesture to remind us all of people who largely had no choice but to fight for their country, and you, original poster, are getting all upset about it. Some strange psychology at work there I would imagine, what's it really about?

If they are pinning them to everyone who walks in front of a TV camera, then hypothetically you might argue that it's disrespectful if someone was wearing one without having put something in the collection box. After all, it's not only about symbolism, it's a fundraising appeal (their goal is to raise £40 million from the Poppy Appeal this year).

As an aside, I can't recall where I saw it but I'm sure in fiction I've seen a character on TV being shown to re-use a poppy year-after-year, to show them as a miser.

It's great that it's represented on television, I'm glad that it is, but it's an interesting question as to whether this is down to individual choice or policy.

.....but one advertisement I saw spoke of 'not forgetting our servicemen/women'. I'd argue that we speak of war, and seek to remember it, far too much.

The South-West news programme, Spotlight, regularly does ten minutes on either those returning, those going or those who have died (I'd say needlessly), and I don't feel that my fast-forwarding of this regular ten minutes is disrespectful.

As many of you already know I am a carer. We live on a fixed income. Last year our ancient lavatory gave up the ghost,the only way we could get it replaced was through the kind auspices of The Royal British Legion. Because my late Father had served his country (1940 - 1946) we were able to access the money raised by The Poppy Appeal to get this small job done, without it I really do not know what we would have done.
I agree that the enforced wearing of the Poppy is completely wrong. Brave men and women have made enormous sacrifices so that we remain free to make an informed choice about things both great and small, wearing or not wearing a Poppy is one of those choices.
Personally, I wear one, in memory of those sacrifices and to honour the memory of two great uncles who gave their lives in the trenches of Flanders.

situation unique, particularly as we have a monarch who is a living link to WW2 and there remain a few veterans and quite a few people whose parents and grandparents served. In time, as these links fade away, I suspect the tradition will become less prominent.

As well, because the day is now pitched as a remembrance for all the servicemen who have fallen in all conflicts, it persists. We are still angry about what is happening in places like Afghanistan, and the shoddy treatment of so many injured servicemen, and we can cast our minds back to Suez and The Falklands. So the military and their sacrifices are still vivid in our collective memory.

I think it is entirely right to remember and thank those who served and died but I also agree there shouldn't be pressure on people to wear a poppy. Wouldn't it be lovely, though, if in 100 years time Remembrance Day was more about taking some time to be thankful for a long period of peace and to remember the need never to get dragged into war again.

I usually pop a few quid in the tin but never wear a poppy, and I can't say that I have ever felt any disapproval as a result. There does seem to be a clear difference for people in the media as mentioned above.

Can anyone not in the public eyer give an example of a situation where they were made to feel uncomfortable or under any pressure because they did not wear a poppy?

If you want to, wear one. I will, and do, but not for weeks beforehand.

But I absolutely agree with Pax that any idea of compulsion is awful and is far more worthy of condemnation than anyone personally choosing not to wear a poppy. There are valid reasons not to. I don't personally subscribe to them, but there are valid reasons.

remembering that huge number of people were led to slaughter and simply being sorry that these awful, lamentable, criminal things happened, and the path for some veers off into national or military pride.

Kurt Vonnegut says it better:
"So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back to November eleventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.
I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy... all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things."

I think the media compunction to wear a poppy is exactly that - a compunction. I suspect no one is really "made" to wear one and no one will be sacked if they don't wear one. I think some of the wearers may be doing so because of their concern for what the public think of them.

At work, we have poppies for sale on reception and in our coffee area. Lots of people contribute and wear poppies. The majority, I would say. No one is forced but I think they is a strong moral feeling that it is a good thing to contribute and wear one out of respect.

If we all rejoiced in our hard won freedom and didn't wear a poppy the result would be that the funds raised would tail off to nothing. I think the mass populace see poppies and think, I'll buy one/donate/wear one. Without the visual prompt they wouldn't. Fact. It would become just another person rattling a tin in the High Street. Mrs T has done more than her share of tin rattles for fund raising and assures me you don't get much. The poppies are part of the marketing and if the Beeb etc have decided to put their weight behind it, good for them. It is admirable if people give without wearing a poppy, and that is their choice, but wearing the poppy not only makes a public statement about remembrance but also keeps the momentum in others giving too.

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/poppy-police

Happy and proud to wear one in the two weeks or so up until 11-11.

Just about everybody in my professional and social circles are happy to wear them, and none of us are likely to be on the tele.

Sure, it's symbolic. (Can't think of a more appropriate symbol).

The men and women who fell on all sides of all conflicts during the last century had little opportunity to contribute to the debate about the rights and wrongs of what they were engaged with.

It's a time of year where we simply take a moment to reflect on their sacrifice in the knowledge that in other circumstances, instead of my grandfathers and great uncles, it could easily have been me or my children.

As I say, I’m very happy to wear one.

perfectly expressed in song.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1914)

...the British war artist wrote to his wife from the front in 1917:

"I am no longer an artist. I am a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on for ever. Feeble, inarticulate will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth and may it burn their lousy souls."

It's worth Googling other poets of the period such T.E. Hulme and also to look at Nash's paintings like We Are Making a New World (here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars_conflict/art/art_frontline_03.sh...) and others like Sargent's Gassed (here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars_conflict/art/art_frontline_gal_0...) to get some sense of the full horror and why most of continue to wear poppies

because it is a symbol that raises my awareness in a way that no end of celebrity endorsements or paid advertising can do. Every year around now I see the poppies start to appear on TV and the street and it reminds me how unbelievably lucky we are to have been born in such a stable period of history.

I always try to take a minute at 11:00 on the 11th to try and imagine how mind-distortingly horrendous it must have been for my grandparents generation in that truly diabolical war, curiously these days I tend to run through the scene at the end of Black Adder 4 during the minutes silence. I know that November 11th is about all wars but I find the 1st WW a convenient peg to hang my hat on, it must never get that bad again.

It doesn’t take long, of course, before I am back pondering the Apple vs PC conundrum and other weighty issues of the day but for a while every year, and especially the period running up to November 11th, the futility of war is at the front of my mind, largely thanks to the appearance of poppies. There will be a time when we will let it go but I hope it won’t be for a while yet, I certainly make sure my children are aware and I hope they will do the same.

I agree with the posters above that it should, of course, not be compulsory to wear a poppy but I do think it should be encouraged.

Which is why it's important to refresh our familiarity with the poppy image each year. I can't watch this without experiencing an emotional response that makes me both angry and aware of the waste in the past, and angry and aware that it continues today. How much more powerful can something so simple be?

There should be no compulsion attached, but at the same time we should all realise that it's our individual visible continuation of this tradition that maintains the vitality of the act of wearing one.

The decision to wear a poppy is a personal one. I don't like the "I've got a poppy, where's yours?" attitude you see nowadays.

It's like when you have a minute's silence at the football. Instead of silently paying their respects, some folk spend the time looking round for somebody making a noise so they can get all indignant.

since we were *made* to wear them at the naval boarding school I attended. But that has nothing to do with why I don't wear one.
I don't wear a poppy in the same way I don't do anything special on Valentine's Day or Mother's Day or Father's Day, etc, etc.
I tell my wife I love her about a trillion times a day and am in constant contact with the folks who are no strangers to my proclamations of love either.
All three of them receive gifts at irregular times of the year but often. i do it because I am showing them how much I care and that is my choice.

Every time I walk past any kind of war memorial I will stop for a couple of seconds or a few minutes. Every time I walk past the roll call on the wall of Waterloo station I catch the name of one or more of those etched on the granite. I will never forget to remember those that did something I honestly can't imagine doing, laying down their lives for their country.
I don't need a poppy to do it, so I give them a donation and walk on by and if anyone thinks less of me for not wearing a totem of this compassion, fuck them. And thank you to those that died for allowing me to be able to say that.

I personally would wear a white poppy

http://www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy/index.html

the British Legion continue to do sterling work today.

There's a lad who drinks in my local who lost both his legs last year in Afghanistan. Apparently the Legion have helped him get set up with a flat and 'held his hand' whilst he acclimatised to his new condition, both on a practical level - ensuring he gets all the benefits to which he's entitled - and by providing counselling and a chance to talk to other guys who know what he's been through.

In any given town, the Legion has the best snooker table and the cheapest beer as well :-)

I think the whole do/don't wear the Poppy arguement is actually a waste of time. What gets my goat is why members of the armed forces are having to rely on charity. Our "beloved leaders" send them off to some corner of a foreign field to lay down their lives for Queen & country and this is how they are repaid? How about given them a decent pension?

I'm not fussed whether or when people wear (or don't wear) remembrance poppies, and I don't care whether they wear an ordinary one from a street collector or a "posh" one. I'm not fussed if they wear white "peace" poppies either.

It's their own business.

Since last year, when my nephew Chris was killed, I have a personal interest in the matter, but it's still only my particular view and shouldn't affect yours.

A link:
(There are hundreds of these and more keep appearing, unfortunately.)

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/Corpora...

I would like to add this, however.

How Very Bloody Dare the Daily Mail make moral judgements about anyone, anywhere, given their propensity for lying, twisting and even completely faking stories to get their vile opinions over to the unthinking.

The Daily Mail, pre-WWII were great supporters of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. It doesn't seem to me that their views have really changed that much in the intervening years.

After the Gilmour defence at trial (broadly: I didn't really realize what the Cenotaph is and represents even though I'm doing History at a Major University) I think the wearing of poppies and mandatory lectures on what previous generations sacrificed is very much in order.

After taking a deep breath, I then calm down. No, the wearing of poppies shouldn't be compulsory. Nor should any kind of support or remembrance for those who have sacrificed. I don't understand it, and it wouldn't sit well with me, but everyone gets to make their own judgments on these things. But I do think I'm allowed to pass some kind of judgement on those who don't, in any kind of way, offer some kind of remembrance.

If you feel you want to for any reason, then buy and wear a poppy. But don't make a song and dance about it . Cos that is "unBritish", in a way the folk we are respecting would understand.

If you feel you don't want to wear a poppy, for whatever reason. Then don't. Cos no-one is really going to upbraid you you for it publicly, are they?.

However, if you are one of the latter, and resent that some unspoken judgement may be passed on you cos you aren't wearing one, then perhaps you should just man up and get on with it. Thats what happe3ns in a free society. And - by the way - everyone is making judgements on you (and me, and themselves) constantly. Every minute of the day.

Think that covers it.

from Robert Fisk

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-do-th...

what do the german and japanese population do around these remembrance days? just out of interest, wondered if anything or nothing? the wars were as hard on many of thier families i can imagine also...

So what if some people trivialise it or make it compulsory or over commercialise it or even choose not to participate.

Its a way of donating to a worthwhile cause - the British Legion's work - and remembering all those brave young men and women shot and blown to bits at the Somme, Ypres, Gallipoli, El Alamein, Normandy, Arnhem, Burma, the Atlantic Ocean and everyhere else.

So that we could all sit here in a free and democratic society debating it.

Red Poppies

Lapels stained with red poppies,
Not blood, but tears and flashbacks,
The faces as fresh as on the day they died.
Vivid memory and regret, if only
They had slept another hour,
Perhaps they would not now all rest in peace,
Away from tortured conscience.
Nurtured guilt, and photographs
Gathering dust in empty houses,
Gnawing at the souls of the survivors,
Like rats in trenches at the front.
The pain has passed from the dead
To the living, who were spared,
Only to live for years in agony,
Haunted by dreams and faces,
Voices, pleas and places.
Glory in survival, glory for the dead,
March in honour and regret,
Feeling left out, but alive.
Rain cools tear-stained faces,
Remembrance cleanses guilty souls,
Red poppies glistening in the grey morning.

poppies on TV? A normal 'Haig Fund' poppy not good enough? I remember the days when having a poppy with a leaf was considered a bit racy and the mark of a cad.

...and it were all fields round here in them days.

My memory is a bit befuddled these days, so if what I am about to have a little rant about is wrong, then its apologies in advance.

During the expenses scandal a couple of years ago, am I right in rembering that an MP (more than one?)claimed the cost of his
poppy/ wreath on expenses?

IF that is the case, I think it is/ was disgusting behaviour.

clearly don't share the British love affair with the poppy. They've refused a request from the England team to wear an embroidered poppy on their shirts for the upcoming friendly football match against Spain as it would 'open the door to similar initiatives from all over the world, jeopardising the neutrality of football'.

It may seem like a trivial, bureaucratic ruling to us, but I kind of see FIFA’s point. If they allow England to wear their poppies, you never know what kind of other quasi political symbols may pop up on the shirts of other countries.

But you know what's going to happen next, don't you? The Mail, Express and the other tub-thumping press will puff out their chests and call for the England team to defy the FIFA ruling and risk a fine or even cancellation of the game.

Surely advertising on shirts has long compromised any 'neutrality' in the game.

Although I don't agree with the FIFA decision (although I wonder how the British FA would feel if tables were turned and Spain/Germany were commemorating their war dead), it really doesn't matter. It is for 90 minutes during a friendly.

Will the English football team not being able to wear poppies for 1.5 hours really mean that the war dead are left forgotten? No.

The tub-thumping going on by the "pro-poppy" lobby accusing FIFA of all sorts is utterly ridiculous. And actually, I think it is reactions like this that make some people reluctant to wear a poppy.

.....that all this holier-than-thou hogwash appears to have been completely avoided by the Welsh and Scottish FAs whose teams, I presume, are also playing this weekend.

I was silent in the office at 11 a.m. I was happy to do both.

But today, the Metropolitan Police effectively tried to criminalise dissent. Here are some of their tweets from today:

There is a policing operation in place to preserve the dignity of the 2 minute silence #Armistice Day #remember

Individuals seeking to disrupt the 2 minute silence will be dealt with robustly #Armistice Day #remember

If the memory of dead soldiers is insulted where people have gathered to honour those soldiers there is clearly a threat to public order.

So they've taken it upon themselves to judge what constitutes:

1) dignity
2) disruption
3) insult
4) a robust response

And they have effectively threatened anything up to and including the use of force/arrest against anyone who oversteps these arbitrary and vaguely-defined lines in the exercise of the right to free speech which our soldiers died to guarantee. Miss the point, much?

Jesus Christ. I don't often get on board with howls of "police state", but this is really sinister. I hope they apologise in short order for this Maoist bullshit.

Yours,

Simmering, London.

Did anybody see the Tory gobshite on last night's QT wearing a poppy the size of babies head? And all the other fashion statements (the stupid leaf poking out from all compass points?)

I chose not to be in that club.

Was listening to Radio 5 this am and Nicky Campbell asked for people to phone in with stories of people they were remembering.This one moved me to tears:-

'My next door neighbour used to fly Spitfires. He kept his garden tended with military precision.When his wife died he was no longer well enough himself to look after his garden. My mum asked me to go and do his garden every week. I didn't want to but it was an order. We became very close friends and he told me stories of his time as an RAF pilot. When he died there were 3 people at his funeral - a man from the British Legion, his meals on wheels lady and me. I just thought it was sad really. He was my best mate'.
Nicky Campbell had a moment and so did I.

Of course we should remember them and a Poppy is an apt way of doing so.

I just had a weird dream. I was dozing off at the back of the hall during a Student's Union debate about "No Platform for Fascists", and the next thing I know, all my mates have grown beer guts and grey hairs and are STILL having the same debate 35 years later. Fucking hell. I'm never touching that scrumpy again, especially after a Ginsters and a pickled onion.

My partner is German, and her mother is staying here (South Australia) for a while...she rang on the weekend and remarked that she'd been at the produce market on Friday when someone came on the PA and asked for a minute's silence for someone who'd been killed in the war.

My partner looked at the calendar, and said, "Uh huh, was that at about eleven o'clock?"

Her mother gasped, "You heard about it too?"

(She is from another dimension about most things)