Seeing Red

I've been away in London this week doing yet more tedious shit to get the flat ready for rental. The main thing to have frustrated my already high-tension mind this week is this whole poppy debate. Let me explain for those who don't know. Since 1921 - three years after the end of the First World War - the Royal British Legion has collected money for the old soldiers who served wherever in the world, for their support and care during their evening years. The selling of poppies to raise funds for our veterans culminates in Remembrance Sunday, the sabbath following the 11th day, of the 11th month, at 11am. That was the date of the signing of the Armistice following the end of the WWI.

My grandfather, Fred, was with the RAF in Burma - now Myanmar - during WWII. He fought alongside the Gurkhas, repaired any engine you cared to give him, swapped hats with an Australian squaddie and received a caution from his unit commander for breach of protocol, rode the wall of death on an old BSA bike in the sweltering heat of the jungle, killers just outside the perimeter, watching, waiting, ready to die. And so: my story isn't that far from that of many men my age, which is around the thirty mark. I get really narked when some people suggest that a) the poppies should be white, to represent peace or b) there's a question-mark over whether they should be worn at all. Let me deal with each in turn.

COLOUR. The reason poppies sold by the RBL in the lead up to Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday are red, is that they represent the red poppies in the fields in northern France where millions - MILLIONS - lost their lives at the point of hot metal, or burned from within by gas. The land there was strewn with corpses, rotting, stinking, decaying humanity, for as far as the eye could see. Pointless, perhaps, but nonetheless done: in our names, and for our future freedom. The poppy should be white, eh? Why's that? To represent peace? Hey - let's have a Peace Day, by all means. But this isn't Peace Day. This is Armistice Day. This is the memory of slaughter on an unprecedented scale, a memory of sacrifice, of loss. The poppy stays red, chum.

WEARING ONE AT ALL. I used to think a lot more of John Snow. Perhaps, somewhere, there is a professional aspiration embodied for me, in him. But that is all different now. I accept the fact that one shouldn't use the media as a platform for personal beliefs and attitudes - impartiality is key - but to publicly say that you won't be subjected to "poppy fascism" and refuse to wear it on any news bulletin? Perhaps you'd have preferred REAL fascism to mere floral fascism? Sir, you are a numpty. And what's more, you now look like the kind of woolly, grey, try-to-please-everyone, politically-correct numpty that is symptomatic of the loss of balls within this nation. Oh dear, team.

Wear Your Poppy With Pride. And make sure it's red.