To have been 32 and cycling through poppy fields in France before the penny fucking dropped!

[NeverGhoul]

There I am pedalling along this summer through poppy fields in northern France when I had a sort of moment of clarity re: the whole wearing a poppy thing. I never got the link til then. Only took 32 years.

AIBU or just a bit dim and unquestioning?

Suncottage - that story brought a tear to my eye.

I wear a poppy too.
My Grandfather who i never met died in 1930 as a result of being gassed in WW1 My Grandmother had to bring up three children with no benefits.
No war pension 'cos he had lived too long after the end of the war.
She took in in washing,cleaned houses,took in lodgers,and worked in school(private)kitchens.
They had a hard life then.

Suncottage - that is so beautiful. How proud you must be. I am fascinated by the story - did your Great Grandmother know that he was involved in "special" operations or did she truly believe that he had deserted? I NEED to know

I'll forgive the OP about the poppies - when I was a child I just always thought the poppies represented drops of blood - like each flower was a blood stain signifying death and blood stained soil. I don't think the literal significance matters - the sense is what matters. And you probably got a hugely more profound sense of what it meant cycling through those fields at the age of 32 than many people get in a lifetime of seeing the cardboard and plastic offerings every November.

And SkeletonFlowers, I would say thanks for linking to that blackadder final scene but I daren't click on it. I cried the first time and cry each and everytime I see it

War will never end - there is too much profit in it

I wear a poppy with pride. We leave this Saturday for a week in Normandy - mainly to attend the Armistice Day ceremony at the graveyard where my grandfather is buried. He died on 13th June 1944 7 days after the D-Day landings - he was part of the initial landing and involved in the liberation of Pegasus Bridge - as shown in the film The Longest Day .

He never even knew that my gran was pregnant with my dad - I've got the letter from the Priest writing to her telling her she was a widow - and then the Priest's response to a letter from her where he says that there really is no mistake, her husband really was killed, there is no hope that he will come home - she must have written in such desperation and hope.....

GlasJam

We found out when my grandmother died in 1982 the full story of her father's death. He was listed as a deserter and the shame on the family was awful and my grandmother had an awful time as 'the daughter of a deserter'.

He had reached the German trenches and was basically executed and left in the mud. When his body was found he was posthumously pardoned and had the plaque made for him.

It is there in Westminster Abbey.

I like the poem - not in the league of Wilfred Owen or Sigfried Sassoon but special to me.

bumping 'cause i like the thread.

Well I admit ignorance re polar bears.

First I thought 'I wonder which pole they are from'.

Then I considered googling it, but decided I couldn't be arsed.

Then I wrote 'one of the poles' but decided that sounded weird.

Then I took a random guess and got it wrong!

In one post I have managed to be ignorant, lazy, paranoid and unlucky. And to top it all I elicited kindness from MNetters!!!!

That's pretty impressive multitasking!

Did anyone see the on the news tonight, - there was film taken from an airship after the First World War showing the devastation in France, it was just unbelievable, shocking, very sobering and moving.

(The airship pilot was filmed smiling over his shoulder at the camera, he was killed in the next war leaving a baby daughter. She was viewing the film and was so touched to see him smile, all the photos she had of him he was looking very serious.)

Anything at all to do with WW1 just makes me so sad and tearful, just can't help thinking of those poor "little" boys proudly marching off into carnage and their bravery was just so sobering.
lest we forget...............

Well at least you admit it OP!

Can't believe you never had the connection explained to you at school. If you haven't watched 'Blackadder Goes Forth' then please do - it's genius.

My oldest DS is 20 and DS2 is 16...
The very thought of either of them 'marching off to war' is crushing.

I didn't see that Kurri, but there was a pair of before and after aerial photos of Passchendale in the Times at the weekend - appalling.

I have just finished reading DD a book set through WWI (Rilla of Ingleside, the final installment of the Anne of Green Gables series) - it was very interesting to read a book penned near the time (before WWII, so written in the hope of a better world), and from a Canadian perspective. Some of it impossible to read aloud without blubbing.