Re: Remembrance Sunday

[Anonymous]

Hi,

The symbol was indeed taken from the killing fields (by an american) but I believe it was originally used as a way to make money for french kids who needed assistance – not as a symbol of the fallen.  It was only when the english government did not provide for the returning injured that the poppy was taken up in England as a means to raise funds for those who could no longer earn a living.

This has absolutely nothing to do with modern politics – it was political from its inception and certainly political in its arrival into the UK.  

The white poppy has been around since well before WW2 as a symbol of peace as a direct result of the fact that the “red poppy crew” refused to honour and remember those who fell as civillian casualties.  

here i am a child of the 1970’s i grew up from the tiniest baby with a huge crater and cracked glass in windows from a german bomb meant for coventry in my grandparents field.  soldiers are still brainwashed today – but I find my friends on the front line left without adequate protection due to supply shortages in Iraq.  They had little more than the soldiers in WW2 to protect them.  War has been and always will be political – I dont think anyone in their enrollment mentioned they’d be strolling round the frontline in les than your average PC !!  The one guy I think of particularly went in not to fight for Q&C but for good wages and a good pension.  The RM’s I know also bring home sickening stories of being dumped and left to fend for themselves.

Every year the poppy petals take longer to fall because politics continues to stick its beak in and back it up with bombs.  We are no less invoking “terror” than those we call terrorists.

Did you know that remembrance day was never meant to be an annual event.  It was the people that ensured it carried on.  Politics wanted to do away with remembering the fallen that they had created.

My family have their own war dead …. from what I know starting with the Battle of the Somme I believe.

Claire.