What are those little red Flowers!

[Angree]

I was enjoying a rare coffee in Starbucks this morning and I heard a shocking conversation on the next table.

There were two girls about 19/20 and one said to the other "What are those little red flowers that everyone is wearing...is it a fashion thing?" The other one said "I think its something to do with Cancer".

I mean really W.T.F, how do you get to that age and not know about poppies?

They are the exception I believe.

There is no excuse for that kind of ignorance imo. Total

This ISN'T "how kids are nowadays". Last remembrance day quite a few people didn't stop for the 2 minute silence out of say, 20 that kept doing their own thing only one of those people was under about 40. Most of the people who carried on in blissful ignorance were definately old enough to know better. I bet most them moan about "young people today" all the time. [hhmm]

Thickos.

I personally don't think the 'hard hitting impact of poppies' should ever be 'lessened'

I can't imagine anyone over the age of 5 not knowing. But I can imagine that if you're not that interested in it all then it does seem a lot of symbols to remember with pink ribbons, wrist bands, red noses, pudsey etc etc.
How sad :(

Oh god , dare I say it.

As a German living in England, I don't like those poppies.

Sorry.

Why Schulte?

Schulte, whyever not?

i have always seen wearing poopies as respecting the dead on both sides, especially for WW1.

sorry- that should be POPPIES, not poopies.

It's very hard to explain but I'll try... we're brought up to be ashamed of Germany's military past, and anything that has even the slightest hint of glorifying war (sorry bad choice of word here but I can't find a better one) feels wrong. All this coverage of the Battle of Britain... celebrating heroes... I can't even remember if anyone in Germany lays down flowers for the poor boys who died in the wars. They probably do but it's done very very low key. Does that make sense?

My kids look at the first world war poets in the lead up to the 11th at their primary school. I can't imagine anything better to explain the sadness of war than those poems.

Schultz I really think the poppies are to remember that whole generation of your men whose lives were wasted in a meaningless war (the first world war) rather than any anti-German sentiment. It is supposed to make you feel sad, I nearly always shed a tear at the words of the remembrance service.

Oh I don't think there is anything anti-German about them. But you know, you're proud of the men who fought in those wars, as you should be, and I am ashamed. And the poppies remind me of that. That's all

I think so.

Personally I have never viewed poppies as glorifying their deaths- more a tribute to the pointlessness of war. A whole generation of young men nearly wiped out.

Don't be ashamed of the men who fought. Be ashamed of the politicians behind them.

The women and children and how they suffered, are the poppies for them as well?

For all who suffered through war.

I'd like the OP to come back and tell us she's joking but I suspect that that's not going to happen.

I'm shocked at the young womens ignorance and deeply saddened too.

I'm pretty much a Pacifist who once would never have entertained the idea of respecting the red poppy. Then I read the story of my Great Nan's younger brother who, having been injured in the Somme, was returned to the front to die in the mud and gore that was Passchendaele. He was just 21 years old.

My Great Nan lived long enough for me to know her for 14 years. She was a sweet, kind lady and had her brother lived I may have met him too. As it is, he is buried in foreign fields and the family he left behind never had the opportunity to lay poppies on his grave.

My children know James' story and many others like it and it hurts me to think that our young people can be so ignorant of something so important to us all.

They are all gone now as well, aren't they?

LittleRedPumpkin I was brought up to think of the poppies as commemorating both world wars and the lost lives of all servicemen. Though the emphasis was usually in the two WW's due to how significantly different the world would be now without their sacrifice.

Although poppies weren't from WWII, they are used to symbolise those lost in WWII just as much. So IMO you'd have to not know about either war to not know about poppies, which is a very sad thing.

So was I, but I know how the symbol originates, and I think it's no bad thing if they are replaced with more recent symbols.

It would be very sad if we didn't remember the dead, but I feel uncomfortable with the idea that we should continue commemorating them with the red poppy. Now there are no more WWI combatants here to mind, I think it would be no bad thing to let that symbol fall away. It should be something of a source of shame that before WWI, we didn't really have a public way of remembering dead soldiers.

I don't agree with the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it seems very wrong that we make so much of the world wars (often taught in school as a simplistic 'good British soldiers vs. the evil Nazis), and so little of the troops who are dying right now.

Btw, if you want to remember but also symbolize peace, you can wear a white poppy.

I think the poppy now commemerates all the fallen - not just WWI and II but beyond. The sale of them for the British Legion is certainly to help those injured in more recent conflicts, isn't it?

I'm currently finding myself suprised at my own ignorance of WWI - I'm reading DD 'Rilla of Ingleside', the last in the Anne of Green Gables series, which spans the period of the war, with Anne's sons going off to war.

I thought all schoolkids now were taught about it through the medium of Black Adder nowadays?

I was just about to say the Poppy appeal (RBL) is as much about todays conflicts as well as those past.

It makes me really angry that people like those girls are so ignorant.

I was upset the other day when someone butted into a conversation I was having with my neighbour and said "what do you mean when you say, we are a country currently at war?, we're not at war with anyone!"

FFs - makes me sick some of the ignorance in this country.

And breathe rant over!!!!!!

@ LittleRedPumpkin - where can you get the white poppies? I always get a red poppy but I like the idea of a white one to symbolize peace.
There's a part of me that always clings to the hope that one day, we'll all just get along.

Quote taken from the Poppy appeal website

"The Poppy Appeal

Each year the nation expresses its unequivocal support for The Royal British Legion's charity work through the Poppy Appeal. Our emphasis this year is the need to help the Afghan generation of the Armed Forces and their families - today and for the rest of their lives.

Our target in 2010 is £36 million and we call on the nation to give generously and to wear their poppies with pride."