why do you wear a poppy?

I think this is important. I also know veterans who loathe the public events because it shouldn’t be the case that veterans have to rely on charities to support their needs following service (or in the case of my uncle, serious permanent injuries sustained during training). I’ve heard remembrance events etc described as a form of white washing. I think the state should by default cover all relevant medical and MH needs for life, for those who have served.

I think the most important thing, and something which is clearly not recognized in the current media frenzied poppy policing, is that these young men died to allow freedoms and choice.

My Dad was a WW2 veteran. He went to visit his dead friends every year in Italy, and I went with him. But for him it was a very personal experience, and he was not a great fan of public remamberance.

It is actually quite complicated, especially the burning of hated effigies bonfire tradition [whereas Fawkes was actually hung drawn and quartered] & yet also showing a what if scenario [the fireworks]. In some towns there are also large processions with everyone holding flaming torches). And yes, very anti Catholic - violently so in the past - yet today bonfire night events are hosted by Catholic primary schools! It’s a very strange thing to commemorate in a modern state that promotes multi culturalism & aims to be anti sectarian. And it’s also noteworthy that Guy Fawkes Night was originally a state mandated celebration since the 1600s, with religious sermons a key element, intended to promote Protestant patriotism and anti-Catholic sentiment, only repealed in the 1800s. As an ex Catholic I love it though 😝 I love the history & alien-ness of old traditions. But I don’t pretend it makes sense.

Yes religion is very important to the reason of why they wanted to blow uo parliament.
Basically the monarch (King/Queen) is Church of England (Protestant). CofE was invented by Henry VIII so he could get a divorce as he couldn't under Catholic rules.
But some people wanted the monarch to be Catholic so that's why things like the Gunpowder Plot happened.
Terrorism basically but in the year 1605.
(Cromwell came later....he would have been only 6 years old in 1605)

I am proud to wear the scarlet poppy as my recognition of my wonderful, loving late grandmother who, all her life, mourned the loss of her brother in Flanders.

I shall myself be beneath the Menin Gate on Tuesday and it is a limitless honour to do so.

It's not hugely complicated.
Guy Fawkes was part of a group of Catholics who wanted a Catholic Monarch (King/Queen) instead of a Protestant (Church of England) one.
So they planned to blow up parliament using gunpowder as an act of terror (so sometimes called the "Gunpowder Plot")
However they failed and we celebrate that failure.
November 5th also known as Bonfire Night or Fireworks Night traditionally has a bonfire with an effigy of Guy Fawkes burnt on it and fireworks to represent what would have been if the gunpowder plot had worked.

Because they were literally written as a response to a poem saying ‘take up our quarrel with the foe…if ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep’.

Fireworks aren’t questioned as to why though. Just as to whether they need to be so loud and so easily available for back garden aerial bombardment re-enactments.

Why do you think the lines
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
mean more than trying to make the world they died for a better place?

@SugarPlumpFairyCakes A Russian Jew- I should have used that phrase as that’s
the OP’s description

Its to acknowledge that people, mostly younger than my own adult children lost their lives before they had even got properly started. I don't need to support the decisions made by politicians or military leaders to see the human sacrifice and not want the people who made it to be forgotten.

A Russian Jewish person?

There are some proper weirdos on this thread.

Interesting the OP has disappeared after her request for ‘education’, and she hasn’t posted anything to say she now understands the emotional side of this issue, which was her premise for the thread.

I genuinely think OP had posted here to trigger arguments and it has worked a little. I’d love to know if the OP is actually a Russian Jewish person or if the OP is a bot of some kind, trying to sow upset around the poppy.

I think the OP is probably British, doesn’t like the poppy, and was hoping for some kind if culture war argument. The ‘naice’ reference was the final giveaway.

White is for peace. White is a symbolic colour for many reasons in general. Peace, purity, innocence, etc.

https://www.ppu.org.uk/

There. They've been going since 1934 so they're not a new organisation. Interestingly when the idea of wearing poppies was first mooted people wanted them to be white, but red was chosen.

Most didn't bleed onto "British soil".
Sorry to be picky.
UK had the blitz in WW2 (and a brief bit of zeppelin bombs in WW1) but much fighting didn't happen in the actual UK.

The mere fact that millions of men bled out into British soil trying to defend and protect the country and secure our way of life is plenty enough of a reason to wear a poppy. Not a white one, a red one. The poppy plant, the one with opiate within it.

To remember how awful war is and how we should really, really try to avoid it. Plus the donation helps veterans.

I wear a poppy because my paternal grandfather died in Italy in 1944 serving our country and both my parents were in the services my dad in REME and my mom in the AT S so to me it's a reminder of people doing what needed doing in a very dark era of history and respect to those who did not come back home

A Google search will also show why many people DO NOT wear a poppy. And OP was genuinely, it seemed to me, curious about individuals motives.
Half the time people feel they have to wear it … not all those presenters, newsreaders, sports people want to particularly but the shit they get if they don’t kowtow can be immense.

I don’t wear a poppy. I’m from Northern Ireland originally, and remembrance there has a very different history and emotional weight compared to the rest of the UK.

For many people in NI, the British Army wasn’t just something from history books. They were a visible presence on the streets during the Troubles. Some families experienced them as protectors; others experienced them as part of the conflict. So the poppy doesn’t feel neutral or purely commemorative to everyone. It can feel tied up with identity and trauma. It’s complicated, and people’s experiences are not the same — and that’s okay.

There’s also the history of Irish soldiers in WW1. Home Rule for Ireland had been passed but postponed when the war began, and many Irish men were encouraged to enlist on the understanding that supporting the war effort would help secure self-governance afterwards. Many genuinely believed they were fighting for Ireland. When the war ended and Home Rule was delayed again due to fears of unrest in Ulster, a lot of Irish families felt deeply betrayed. That’s part of why remembrance has a different meaning in Irish communities.

I absolutely respect that many people wear the poppy to honour the dead. I just think respect should go both ways — some of us remember in different ways because of our history, and that’s valid too.