Wear Your Poppy With Pride
by Baron Halpenny, LincsMag Editor-in-Chief.
Date: 1 November 2009
When you wear your Poppy, it is not just for those that laid down their lives in what was the nightmare of carnage of the First World War; it is for all those brave men and women who have lost their lives in all the wars and conflicts, that we have had the unfortunate nature to be in.
Right or wrong their being in any war or conflict that is the fault of politicians who should, but sadly seldom are, be held accountable to us the people. Our forces, built up of exceptional men and women, endeavour to protect our freedoms and this nation as a whole.
The colour of the poppy is red, as Colonel John McCrae saw them (read his poem here) and the last three lines of his poem are:
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Flanders fields.
His poem has stuck with me since I first read it as a young lad, and I have always, when abroad, visited nearby war cemeteries to pay my respects to those that lay in a foreign field far from home.
I’m still a traditionalist and observe two minutes silence at 11 on the 11th of the 11th. Those, and sadly there are a few, that feel this is an inconvenience, fail to grasp that they are only here because of our forces.
Interestingly the idea of the two minutes silence was a very Commonwealth merging of ideas based on an old idea to a very solemn occasion.
The true originator of the Silence on Remembrance Day was an Australian reporter working in Fleet Street called Edward Honey, who wrote a piece about it.
This was subsequently read by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, an astute South African statesman who contacted Lord Milner to put the proposal to King George the Fifth, who put the official seal on the idea and authorised its adoption. But the idea all started with a journalist … the power of the press.
Respect their sacrifice.
Today, the sale of poppies helps the Royal British Legion's charitable work helping safeguard the welfare, interests and memory of those who are serving or who have served in our Armed Forces.
Regardless of which side, left or right, that you wear your poppy, just wearing one shows you remember and care. It’s when we stop remembering and caring that tyrants start to rear their ugly heads.
The whole object is to remember and endeavour as a people working together, to ensure that such losses never happen again, or at the very least every peaceful solution sought.
It is not to glorify war as some factions have tried to claim, but to honour the individual human as well as the forces as a whole, that have tried to defend mankind and democracy.
They have ensured our freedoms, and they and their memory, rightly deserves our respect ... that is why we wear the poppy.
