Very few people wearing poppies this year?

[YippieKayakOtherBuckets]

Anyone else noticed this?

I was in some very busy parts of London today and saw maybe half a dozen people wearing poppies in total. I’m watching Question Time now; the panel are all wearing poppies (the Plaid Cymru representative is wearing a red and a white poppy side-by-side) and at a glance I’d say less than a quarter of people are wearing them.

Is this primarily because of Gaza or did the trend start a while ago? Are people who used to wear poppies now choosing not to? I know this probably sounds very journalisty but I’m not, I promise. I’m really struck by what feels like a dramatic cultural shift in the last ten years or so.

I really appreciate all of these thoughtful posts, thank you.

I hope it’s clear by now that I’m not trying to be goady.

The government will keep sending men to fight wars and we will still be left with the bill and the emotional blackmail for the maimed and traumatised vets.

This is crucial as well. Rightly or wrongly, the poppy appeal has now seen to be very much 'the establishment' - with every MP making sure they are seen wearing one - and we are all now painfully aware of how much the establishment cares about supporting and looking after the people who serve in the military once they are no longer young or healthy enough to be useful.

It's a bit like if Sunak were to throw his weight behind a new charity set up to buy essential routine NHS equipment and urge us all to donate generously and support it. If the government doesn't care enough to allocate the budget to the basics that we all expect our money to be spent on, instead of on countless wasteful vanity projects, why should we be guilted into stepping in and paying for it again?

How would we feel if a wealthy local family were begging the community to gather around and buy their children presents, so that they will have something to open on Christmas Day - because the parents prefer to invest their considerable assets into stocks, fine wines, limousines and offshoring all of the rest?

I wondered about this too, OP.

I'd only wear a white poppy. I buy them every year but don't often wear. I used to receive a lot of disapproval for wearing one when younger (and I wasn't allowed to wear one at home). Someone called me a fascist a few years ago, which was very strange I thought.

I usually save wearing mine until the remembrance march as they often blow off in the wind.

We dilute everything by dragging it out. And the sparkly, embroidered, beaded, enamelled stuff... I really don't get it.

Yes, I'm a bit uneasy at all the pretty, decorative, expensive, high-fashion versions of poppies that are around.

The traditional paper poppy on a little plastic stick is a simple symbol to commemorate the horrors of war. I think that wearing any kind of special version of it that you know will draw attention to you, make people admire it and maybe compliment you for your sense of style just seems very wrong. A Gucci handbag can be all about you; the poppy is not.

Can we blame Strictly for sparkly poppy brooches? I don’t remember every seeing them before that!

I can’t recall seeing anyone selling them. I’ve been in my own city down south and two big northern cities this week and through what feels like 45 railway stations. Not seen anyone selling.

I had a great AIDS ribbon which was red diamanté in the 90s. But that felt more in the spirit of stopping shame and stigma. And making talking about AIDS loud, not whispered.

I think that's the first 'shiny' version of something sombre and maybe that kind of attitude leaked out.

Also, DH is Irish and never wears them; his reasons opened my eyes slightly.

I remember an Irish distant cousin telling me that, where she's from, the only people who wear poppies in November wear orange sashes and bowler hats in June. I'm not clear on the history behind that, but her input made me understand how someone can support RBL and still have excellent reasons for refusing to wear a poppy, long before I started challenging poppy wearing myself because of the everyday militarism aspect.

I have never worn one.

I am wearing a white one this year. But tbh I haven't noticed anyone wearing one. Normally people would put a Remembrance FB filter on their profile too but I've not seen one person do it

I stopped wearing one the year that the Union Jack brigade tried to shame Charlene White for not wearing one. I donate to Combat Stress instead now, and will probably donate to a refugee charity this year as well.

It is because of the Troubles and how the British Army treated Catholics.

Gaza, lol. 😆

No, dear, I'm sure it's nothing to do with that. Most of us just simply don't care about Gaza. Honestly, we don't.

We usually rely on doorstep collectors, but there hasn’t been one here for a couple of years. We both wfh and shop online so haven’t been able to pick one up until today. We’ll wear them to go to the service of remembrance on Sunday. And we always place a poppy cross in the field of remembrance at the church in memory of our lost family members. I don’t think it’s a big issue not to wear them for a couple of weeks beforehand - this weekend is the time for our collective remembrance so this is when they are important.

Who is most of us? A lot of us do.

Now AIDS ribbons in the 90s are a very interesting comparison. They were EVERYWHERE at the end of November / beginning of December every year. Same with pink breast cancer ribbons in October. Then it was the yellow Livestrong and white Make Poverty History wristbands in the 2000s. All pretty much disappeared now.

What a callous post.

Of course a great many people across the world care about innocent people - including many defenceless children - being needlessly killed.

What an unpleasant response.

I’ve noticed for a few years now that fewer people wear them. Tbh I find the ones you buy on the street quite annoying, they don’t stay put and get crumpled and look shit quickly. I put money in for them but I have a poppy badge I bought from the RBL I wear instead

You sound nice.

I suppose in the latter 20th century and even the early part of this one both world wars were still within people's collective memory. Now we are right on the verge of them passing from modern history into just history and that will probably make a difference in how future generations view the tradition of remembrance.

Maybe it will eventually stop happening or perhaps evolve into something similar but not quite the same as the version older generations have marked every November.

The phrase 'lest we forget' has always been associated with Remembrance Day but the more time passes it's inevitable it will be 'forgotten'. Not forgotten in the strict sense of the word because people will still know and learn about the world wars of the early 20th century but the collective memory will be gone.

How do people not understand the relationship between wearing a 'never again / lest we forget poppy' while genocide occurs and is broadcast to us daily.

There's a strong movement of people saying 'I don't want to see a poppy while you stand back and watch children be bombed'.

I haven't seen any for sale yet. There is usually a table near the door in Morrisons but there wasn't one on Monday. No-one standing about selling them either, anywhere I went.

I usually buy and wear a purple one for the animals too, after ensuring the money went to charity and not the people randomly selling them on Ebay for their own gain.

Many volunteer poppy sellers are afraid that they will be assaulted so have decided not to man stalls in the stations.
https://inews.co.uk/news/poppy-sellers-missing-pro-palestinian-protest-chaos-2738806

Did you read the article? That's really not what it says. It says a poppy seller was assaulted and there's been a decline of volunteer sellers at stations, and ponders if the two are connected, to which the Legion refused to comment.