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.

It has made me ashamed, parading my precious objections to wearing a poppy. To those who were lost, those who survived them, and those injured who lived on disabled, there have been more important concerns.

The second reason is that we now have before us many very recent losses of life, or dreadful injuries. Almost every week the newspapers report another soldier killed or gravely injured in Afghanistan. People have seen these losses on the front pages of their local papers as well as the inside pages of national newspapers: real people, friends or friends of friends. This somehow lifts the story above whatever concerns we may have to save the £ or reform the voting system.

The third reason may seem to contradict what I’ve just written — indeed, does contradict it — but not emotionally. Though the two world wars fought in the last century grow steadily more distant in time, I’m not finding (are you?) that they are becoming less real.

Of course there are every year fewer who do actually recall. I was born in 1949. My father fought in the war that, when I was young, everybody talked about: World War II. ‘The Great War’ was then an earlier but still well-remembered horror. As a youth this used to irritate me: ‘why can’t they move on in their minds?’ I used to think. Poppies and Remembrance Sunday seemed to me part of this inability to let go of the past.

But today few could be called fixated, yet everybody still knows. We know objectively that these conflicts mattered tremendously. Nor is it even a question of taking sides. I’m glad Britain won, of course, but am well aware of arguments about the claimed futility of the first world war. These arguments may be correct. I don’t care. One just thinks of the horror of it; and of the magnificent, unreasoning self-sacrifice of which human beings are capable, and one is moved. As time goes on one can feel pity for the German troops and people, too, in both wars.

Previous page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Next page

More articles from: Matthew Parris | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (3)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

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.

Post comment