Where can I get a white poppy?

[Ellbell]

Some time ago, I used to wear a white poppy (for peace) at this time of year. I haven't seen them for some years now. Does anyone know if they are still produced and where I can get one? Thanks

soapbox look on the whitepoppies weblink further down.

the red poppy brings awareness, nearly half of my ds(5) class were wearing them today. it's like any other charity though, if you don't want to support them no-one is forcing you to.

great post georgina.

but symbols are important too. paper and plastic as may be but a powerful symbol.

Personally i feel the white poppy is a symbol i feel more comfortable with in that it comes from the same place of remembrance (the guy that did the FIRST remembrance sunday service founded the white poppies....PLEASE do read up on what you are all so critical of) but with an emphasis on peace rather than glory.

and glory is inherent in the symbolism of remembrance sunday imo. it is my opinion, it is how i experience the procession and the involvement of the royals and the pomp (sombre, but pomp nonetheless) that accompanies the wreath laying.

the british legion used to hold 'Victory Balls' at this time of year. THAT is where some of the red poppy symbolism is coming from.

soapbox great post

Georgina - if the British Legion does not support these families - who will?

As I suspected the white poppies money goes to fund the organisation itself - not an organisation I have any desire to fund.

I wouldn't call the ceremony 'pomp'. I would call it solemn and dignified. Those involved wear their medals with pride and why shouldn't they, it's a recognition of their fortitude and sacrifice.

What's wrong with a 'Victory' ball?

sophable: agree entirely about being comfortable with the symbol you wear (and they're very powerful symbols - great viral marketing idea that you'll note other charities are starting to use too - awareness bands for poverty, pink ribbons for breast cancer etc). Also, not everyone wants to advertise what charities they give to and symbols on a jacket are an anathema to them. Each to their own.

If I'm honest, what does the red poppy mean to me? It means childhood nostalgia of getting that perfectly made little flower, with lovely stiff paper... feeling the texture through my fingers and best of all... being trusted to use a REAL PIN!!! That's why, for me, the silence is the more grown up serious bit.

soapbox: "Georgina - if the British Legion does not support these families - who will?" I honestly don't know. Who will perform sea rescues without the RNLI? Would we, as a society, cope without an Age Concern or the Samaritans or Greenpeace or... the list goes ever on, doesn't it?

I just personally feel quite strongly against ANYONE'S personal choice of charitable giving being vilified, especially those where a lot of thought has gone into it. I also believe that charities should be accountable to its donors, and part of that accountability is for people to choose to donate their money elsewhere.

And I will also stand up here and state that I know I don't give enough to charitable causes.

What I meant to say, in a rather roundabout sort of way, is that the choice to wear a white poppy shouldn't be seen as a mark of disrespect - especially as they're harder to get, and those wearing them have probably put a lot of thought and effort into the purchase.

and all those men fought so that no-one could stop you doing so.

Yep and I will be thinking of them on Sunday. And women threw themselves in front of horses so I could vote (which I do, btw). We owe a lot to previous generations, even the grumpy old buggers holding up the queue in Tescos and tutting at my tantrumming child .

btw I just wanted to say that I have collected for the BL for many years and I have never had any kind of negative reaction or any pacifists threatening to shove the poppies down my throat

glad I'm not the only one that noticed harpsi

nice one Sal

My grandad was killed by a landmine in Italy in WW2. That's why we wear poppies in our family.

when I see the Remeberance day parade on rememberance sunday- all of those old soldiers/sailors/airmen looking so damn proud as they march past the Cenotaph, makes me feel so humble. How can anyone begrudge buying a poppy or donating to the RBL when you see these people who would have seen the most horrific things, lost friends etc?

makes me well up each year- these people are our history- they fought so we could live as a free nation.

thank you for putting that poem on sally- I had never read it in its full context. Very humbling IMO.

MB, can see your point but to WW2...can I just point out that not all of those fighting for Germany at the time were actually NAZIS....for those at the front line it was a war that was sold to them as brilliantly as the wars are now...great speaches by Hitler, etc...and also, forinstance my Grandfather (who lost a leg in that war) and Grandma come from a part of (back then ) Germany (now Poland) called Silesia (Schlesien) and for them fighting on the german site was what saved their life, they had to flee their part of the country in horrendous conditions, and the Russians and Polish people were their main enemy, raping, killing, etc....things that happen in war....but if they could not have gotten to the main part of germany they would have been slaughtered by the other sides...what choice did they have?
Honestly, I know what Hitler did was wrong, and I certainly do not agree with that, but, even at that time, a lot of germans were kept in the dark or just faught for their own survival (primal instinct)....!
I know this is going a bit off topic really...but needed to get it off my chest!

Poem written by 13 yr old girl- to be read out on sunday.

There Lie Forgotten Men
They lie there in their thousands
The last rays of sunlight
Catching the white of the gravestones
Lending a poignancy to the moment
Numbering in their thousands they lay
Deserving remembrance
And yet the scarred green fields are empty
Nothing remains here
The processions of people vanished with the years
Their sacrifice all but forgotten

She stands there alone
At the edge of the silent place
And she is shocked
New wars brew and these forgotten men
Will play no part in them
The dead silence warn no ears but hers
In great halls in moments of great decision
What they fought for is forsaken
And by days end new gravestones
Appear on the blood red ground

She finds what she seeks
'Sgt John Malley Age 27'
His life brutally ended
And she stands by his grave
But he can give no answers
And she weeps for him
For the empty hole he left behind
And for the new emptiness
Soon to join the black chasm
And her tears join the flood

Rebecca Sullivan

maybe one day in the not too distant future there could be a day for all nationalities to wear the white poppy.

Rebecca Sullivan made me weep

3AndNoMore, I've never bought "germans as victims" theory of history.
It's true that maost were not memebers of the Nazi party, but...
German propaganda filmms before WWII made big play of German bombers killing civilians in WWII.
Millions of Jews were rounded up and murdered. This was not some officer losing the plot and ordering people shot, but a structured enterprise involving tens of thousands of germans in the police, train system, guard on camps etc.
How did they miss this ?
When ordered to murder people, German soldiers never ever refused., More British soldiers were shot for failing to carry out order than German.
You see kids piled up in heaps of bodies.
Do you a) think this a job well done.
b) take the gun in your hands and kill you commanding officer.

For absolutely all Germans in uniform it was (b).
Civilians also knew the score. German propaganda was long on how they were taking out the trash by force of arms, and their Jewish/Gay/disabled neighbours disappearing must have been a big bloody hint.

This was total war, not one in any major combatant nation was unaware of what was going on.

Then there is the myth of German "resistance".
It is true that some Germans tried to kill Hitler.
Firslty they only did it when they started to lose, and second almost everone in the plot was called "von" something. The aristos hated Hitler, everyone else thought armed robbery was a cool way of improving the lot of the master race.
Go vist the concentration camp the Germans built in expectation of serious resistance. Turned out not to be necessary because there was almost none, so in the end they "upgraded" it to help murder Jews.
There are tiny obscure villages in New Zealand each of which lost more people fighting Hitler than the whole of Germany put together.
They knew what they were doing, don't let some fool Guardian reader convince you otherwise.

dominiconnor.

[sigh]

all germans are murdering scum?

is that what you're saying?

that we would have done differently...because of what? some inherent national characteristic....we are better racially...whoops, suddenly sounding a bit nazi there!

your post is riddled (you know when a piece of material is more hole than thread) with historical inaccuracies.

Go and read some Primo Levi. Please. He was in the camps and does not agree with you.

well said sophable

I wear my poppy with pride.
I wear my poppy because I am in a free country where I can choose to do so without fear of retaliation.
I wear my poppy to remember my great uncle, shot down aged 17 having joined up and lied about his age.
I wear my poppy to thank all of the people who enable me to live in a free country, enable my freedom of speech, enable my choices.
If you want to wear a white poppy, remember that it only through the bravery of many of those that the red poopy commemorates that you have the freedom to do so.
I wear my poppy to remember that twists of fate have created me. My family could have been the unlucky ones who died in concentration camps or were bombed in there own homes.
But mostly I wear my poppy so that I do not forget. I will not forget my freedom, as it has come at a high price.
My poppy does not represent glorification of war. It does not represent anger or hatred of my fellow man. It represents my personal empathy and thanks to those who went to war, so that I did not have to.
There are some very niave posts on here, with some very purile/juvenile points of view. Just be glad that you live in a time and place where you are able to write your opinions down on an open forum without fearing for your life..............................and exhale ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

DC, they missed it as easily as everyone else...come on we all know it wasn't all that easy at that time for jews, forinstance, to immigrate, because the true hooror just was ot grasp, and how coult it!