Are lamppost poppies a thing this year?

[Flumpaphone]

I went outside today and noticed that almost every tree and lamppost in our village has a large poppy on it. When did this start and is it a thing now? I was in another town the other day and same thing there.

As far as I know no-one asked anyone to put them up whoever did has just taken it upon themselves. We had a couple of them up last year and whoever put them up left them there all year. I don't really mind for Remembrance Sunday, but don't really want it 365 days a year.

My area does it every year on lampposts but they're taken down
A local guy does it

We've had them the last few years - DS adores them and counts them every day 😂 they come down every year mid-November

Parish Councils usually. They are really well appreciated round here. They are a bit fiddly- so they take a while to put up and then take down. It’s less than a week to remembrance, the parade is in ten days.

Don't think they're swinging 7ft up off the lampposts
Ours is a man that does it...

Yes, around here it is. Some people have put them on their gates and fences, too.

I don't like stuff like this round my way. We have the poppies up plus someone puts up colourful balloons on lampposts far and wide every year to remember somebody locally who died. But whoever puts them all up never bothers to take them down, so they just sadly deflate or get weather beaten over the months, then at some point fall down and end up as litter on the street. That always takes away any poignancy for me as they end up looking so tatty and make the area look even worse. I don't think it's a good way of commemorating anybody. But as pp have said, if someone takes them down at an appropriate time it's not too bad.

Been a thing here for years. The RBL club is on the high street, I think that has some influence on it.

There seem to be in more local places this year.

I really dislike these. I can't put my finger on why exactly but they just seem so wrong, like a celebration rather than a memorial.

(But I like knitted postbox toppers - they're v cute)

I have to admit they do seem a bit performative. Feels like we are getting away from quiet, dignified remembrance.

They've been a thing in my area for a few years now, well before COVID

Local villages have gone all out this year, it's a sea of red

I think they're too much, likewise the silhouettes of soldiers, which seem to romanticise the war. The poppies are also generating a lot of plastic, which isn't great either.

They have randomly decided to decorate a construction site this year it is technically outside our town hall but it does look a bit daft as its attached to the security barriers surrounding the town hall 😀

One year my home town decided to spray paint silhouettes of soldiers all over the main street so it looked like bodies everywhere we were assured they would wash away in the rain they never really did and remained until the pavement was completely replaced

It made for uncomfortable walking

The council has done that round here since at least 2018, and I think before that.

They’ve been about for years. We had them in the last village we lived and they’re in all the villages around here. I like to see them.

We have these in my town . Large cardboard poppies that have written on them the names of local men fought and diedin ww1 and ww2.It also has the street they lived in and their age when they died. I find it moving and ,a good way to keep memories alive

They’re bloody everywhere in our town, and made of really rubbish, flimsy plastic that def won’t be reused next year. I really dislike them - but if I said anything to the council I’d be hounded out, possibly with pitchforks.