Another voice

I hate badges and ribbons, but this year I have decided to wear a poppy for the first time

Matthew Parris

10 November 2007

For the horror of it all, wear a poppy.

Tattoos repel me as the ultimate, indelible, irremovable lapel-sticker. And during the Eighties I took a lonely stand (at least in some of the circles I moved in) against those red ribbon Aids awareness things; and the pink ribbon breast cancer awareness things, and against the green and white ribbon things, too, whose import I now forget. As for the afternoon recently when virtually the whole House of Commons turned out in yellow ‘remember Maddie’ ribbons — well, let’s hope some of them are embarrassed about it now, even if not at the time.

I just think, I suppose, that it’s a bit vulgar to decorate yourself with your affiliations, your sympathies or achievements. We are not sandwich boards, nor cattle to be ear-tagged, and if I am honest I must confess to feeling doubtful even about wedding rings and engagement rings, any more than if I were livestock I would wish to be branded or have a ring driven through my nose.

I don’t like wearing uniforms either; and surely many would agree. But something I’ve found harder to justify to others has been a reluctance to wear a red poppy in the weeks before Remembrance Day. It really hasn’t been a failure of patriotism or respect for the war dead — by no means — but more a dislike of the almost obligatory nature of this outward observance among a certain class of people. Parliamentary sketchwriters have noted how as soon as the first frontbench MP sports his poppy in the chamber (frugally saved from a previous year, in a fair few cases), all the others, fearful of being thought tardy in respectfulness, do likewise — within hours. The effect of this social dynamic is that poppies start flowering earlier and earlier every year: a sort of cultural equivalent of global warming.

So why was it that last week at Marylebone Station, for the first time in my life, I found myself marching up to the elderly gentleman at his poppy stand and, without a moment’s hesitation after putting my contribution into his box, taking my poppy (as I always used to decline to do) and actually putting it on? I didn’t even need a pin as the buttonhole in my lapel (never tested before) turned out to be real.

There are three reasons. The first is that the Royal British Legion’s poster campaign this year has been so moving. You must have seen it. Scenes of family togetherness and happiness are pictured except that, in the photograph, a flesh-and-blood man — perhaps the father — has been replaced by a sort of ghost, an air-spirit, half-transparent, constructed only of poppies so you can see right through him wherever there are spaces between the poppies. Staring at these images on billboards I have had to fight back tears.

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stephen Deaves

November 8th, 2007 5:32pm Report this comment

I too was born long after WWII ended but likewise feel moved by it as well. I also wear it for the brave but I fear pointless deaths of service men in Irak and Afghanistan.

One of the scarred.

November 10th, 2007 11:12pm Report this comment

Thank you Matthew.

G. A. SPENCER

November 14th, 2007 8:12pm Report this comment

I never have, and never will, buy a poppy for these reasons: 1. I don't need a symbol of anything to remind me of the sacrifice of those who died in war. I know, because I was there, and served six years. 2. The poppy industry (for that is what it is) is an insult to those who were wounded and for whom the fund is supposed to buy comforts they would not otherwise get. THERE IS NO CONCEIVABLE COMFORT that should not be provided by the government; 3. The poppy industry exists largely for its own ends. I have yet to see a believable figure of how much of the money collected finishes up actually paying for "comforts" of ex-service men. I remember my fallen comrades in my own way in my own home.

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