Let's avoid making the humble poppy a far-right symbol
Perhaps I have been living under a stone, but I had no idea—nor did my friends and acquaintances—that the symbolic poppy has been taken over by far-right groups. Neil Mackay wrote about this in his piece “The poppy has been hijacked by the far right – this is why I won’t wear it.”
My late father survived the Normandy landings, and his father was injured at Passchendaele by a shell. He was taken to the Netley receiving hospital on Southampton Water, where he refused surgeons' attempts to amputate his legs. After being treated in twelve other hospitals, he returned to Passchendaele to fight again, enduring the weather in his kilt.
When he died, he still carried a fragment of shrapnel near his spine and a deep wound that could fit a fist. My mother’s boyfriend perished when HMS Kite was torpedoed in 1944—a loss she carried for the rest of her life.
Such are the examples of dedication and fortitude shown by those who went to war to preserve democracy and country. My father instilled in us the importance of supporting the Earl Haig Fund and wearing the poppy in remembrance.
“Lest we forget.”
I can still picture him standing at attention, eyes filled with tears, during the minute’s silence every eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Author’s Summary
The essay reflects on personal wartime family history and cautions against allowing the remembrance poppy—a symbol of sacrifice and unity—to be distorted by extremist groups.