Red for me… I have some original ones, brought from UK… and a knitted one, a brooch, a lapel pin… you name it and I seem to have got it…somewhere. I will always put money in a collection box for a Royal British Legion Poppy…
On 11th November… I wear whichever I can lay my hands on first… but it is always RED
I don’t object to white poppies ( or even purple-is that for animals? ) but I DO object to those organisations hijacking 11th November. Choose another day.
Very shortly on British television not a single person will appear not wearing a poppy. This is normally 1-2 weeks before normal people are wearing them in the street. It would appear that it is somebody’s job to ensure poppies are present on all. (look out for the day shortly that poppies appear universally on television)
If somebody slips the net and is not wearing a poppy they get a huge amount of flack. I think this is wrong it should be entirely someone’s choice to decide if they want to wear one.
I am absolutely not against the wearing of poppies, but I think if it is someone’s choice showing they understand the reason for wearing them the message is far stronger.
Do the French wear poppies?
Their flower of remembrance is the Bluet or cornflower-although the only place I’ve seen them on sale is when we arrive for the commemoration at the memorial on 11th November.
Since living in France I wear the bleuet de France because it’s ‘for the aid of those that remain’ and doesn’t seem to have the triumphalist overtones of the poppy, which has become (for me and many older people) a regrettable symbol of narrow nationalism and militarism.
From my conversations with veterans here in Normandy (none of whom fought in WW2, most saw service in North Africa) the strongest sentiment is regret for the deaths of fallen comrades in senseless colonial adventures. I have a similar feeling myself, although (with mixed feelings) I do buy a poppy in UK but only wear it on armistice day.
At the last commemoration here in town I met a neighbour wearing two medals, and suggested he was proud to wear them, but he said no.,
Imo Peter you’re wrong. I don’t see the poppy as a symbol of nationalism or militarism–narrow or otherwise ( I don’t know what you class as 'older ’ - I’m 64) Neither did my FIL and he was a D Day veteran . Most younger people also know the real meaning of the poppy as opposed to that put on it by various and varying political views.
I have been buying the metal poppy with the date on every year since 2014 to commemorate WW1. I assume this year will be the last dated one.
I only ever regard the poppy as a way of remembering everyone , those who fought and those who kept the home fires burning. Bravery takes many forms.
Sue, I’m sure you do, and there many like you. As for older people, I’m 80 so I have distant but clear memories of WW2 as a child, I was at primary school two years before that war ended. I mourn the many lives that were lost, including civilian lives on both sides.
Many soldiers and sailors who survived the actual conflict on the front were bitter about the war, and did not regard themselves as returning heroes but as dupes, and this is why Churchill was rejected as a peace-time leader after the war. Many working-class men and women saw him as a war-monger.
Every November 11 is an opportunity to bang the jingoistic drum. And of course many who never experienced it on the front love to dress up and bask in the glory, including politicians who send others’ sons (and now daughters) to die in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, who never declared or waged war against us, except as their invaders.
That’s my opinion, and it was my father’s who built bombers and served in the Home Guard (Dad’s Army) in his “spare time” (as if!). As did several of my aunts and uncles who wore uniforms, and helped to rebuild the country after the war.
I befriended a young German boy my own age after the war, and he visited me and my parents, bringing gifts. He lived in central Berlin, and both his parents were killed by Allied bombs. We became close friends. He had been enlisted in the Hitler Youth and trained as a child to fight to defend his Fatherland. A few years earlier and we could have killed each other.
War is not inevitable and seldom if ever justifiable, but it has sexy appeal to men intoxicated by power, and it is a huge generator of money and full employment, which pacifies the unruly. Why don’t women start wars?
Because we have much less testosterone.
I see November the 11th as simply a day of remembrance for those who lost their lives in conflicts both past and recent.
It’s a red poppy for me. If other however must wear a white poppy then, the same as Sue, I would prefer them to wear it any other day but leave the 11th November alone. I happen to be back in the UK this Armistice Day but if I was in France I would not be against wearing the bluet instead of or as well as a poppy. Our German neighbours wanted to know why we were still celebrating the war and we had to explain it isn’t a celebration but to remember those who died on all sides.
My Grandfather served in WW1. He always said he would happily go for a drink with a German because they were just lads like him but from a different country but he wouldn’t have a politician anywhere near him as he hated them for sending him and his friends away, many to their death.
Because they are too busy!
Sorry but I just got this mental image of a group of women sat around a table ’ Sorry but I can’t invade Monday its parents evening ’ 'Well I’ve got Pilates on Tuesday 'Wednesday is bad for me , I’m taking my mother to the chiropodist ‘. ’ Oh blow it let’s just all sit down with a nice cup of tea’
The money raised from sales of red poppies helps support members of the armed forces past and present. Excellent reason to wear one.
@Mat_Davies. In a previous life I had a job that involved accompanying senior politicians. Around armistice day I carried handfuls of poppies to ensure that they were never seen in public without one.
I have never, ever considered Remembrance Day anything other than that. I feel it is a day of sadness for those who lost their lives and their families and a reminder of the horrors of war. The poppy represents those who died and is most definitely not a symbol of triumph, nationalism or militarism, this I feel is a modern and somewhat skewed interpretation.
I used to wear both together.
One of our Friends in Cirencester served in WW11.
To remember all those who served and to stand up for peace at the same time makes perfect sense to me.
Unfortunately, there seem to be those around at the moment who are not thinking of peace as their premier object at the moment.
Because they are nurturers not destroyers.
If you have spent nine months getting to know that child inside you, then gone through the painful process of giving birth, then all the child rearing you have a jolly good idea that war is not worth the death of your child.
This doesn’t mean that we are unaware of outside threats, but like Churchill, jaw, jaw, jaw, not war, war war.
Totally agree, Poppy, but one has to ask whence has come the pressure to conform in poppy-wearing, so that poppies are appearing on “public figures” mid-October: the mandatory wearing of the poppy gets earlier every year.
No TV anchor, ‘weather-girl’ or minor celeb, let alone an MP dare appear without one, without howls of outrage about “betraying our brave boys” or some such ‘patriotic’ idiocy.
Remembrance Day is 11 November, or used to be. Like Christmas used to start on 25 December, not 25 September. 
etcetc
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