Many of my family members served in the British Armed Forces with a few of them dying in the trenches in WW1, one of them a 16 year old relative who died at Ypres. WW1 was a shocking waste of young, working class men for a war that was for the benefit of the ruling aristocratic and banking elites who stood to gain should the conflict turn out in their favour.
I would never wear a poppy as for me it is a symbol of British imperialism but I would never disrespect anyone who wore one. To each to their own. Every person has their own way to remember the dead. Me, I went back to a graveyard in northern Belgium a few years back on a freezing cold day and laid a wreath in memory of a relative whom I never saw, cursing the bankers and the inbred, parasitic aristocrats who used him and countless others to settle a petty family squabble, and for what, over some bruised egos. Fuck them.
I would never wear a poppy as for me it is a symbol of British imperialism but I would never disrespect anyone who wore one. To each to their own. Every person has their own way to remember the dead. Me, I went back to a graveyard in northern Belgium a few years back on a freezing cold day and laid a wreath in memory of a relative whom I never saw, cursing the bankers and the inbred, parasitic aristocrats who used him and countless others to settle a petty family squabble, and for what, over some bruised egos. Fuck them.