My reasons for wearing a poppy, and commemorating Armistice Day, are much more simpler.
Given what previous generations went through I don't begrudge my annual donation to the British Legion. It helps fund their works with ex-servicemen and their families and actually provides employment for some.
As an MEP I was often contacted by ex-service personnel needing help with pensions, expenses and other advice. I must say that I was really very impressed by the fieldwork of the British Legion. One telephone call from my office and I knew that help would be on the doorstep with professional advice within a few days.
Nor do I mind pausing just for a few minutes each year to remember all participants and victims of conflict. I always make that point, when I lead a remembrance service. We pray for those who are fighting, those they are fighting against and the families of all those whose fathers, brothers, and children are away fighting. I don't see any conflict between remembering those afflicted by war and being born again as the result of the sacrifice made by the man who turned up on a donkey.
Then I think of my own family. We still haven't completely recovered from the impact of two horrible wars. My Dad came back and was not a well man. I shan't go into details but I can still be moved to tears as I think of what happened to our childhoods. I multiply that by hundreds and thousands and believe that a few moments thinking and praying for our family and others is not a bad thing. There is still much healing to be done.
Then I think of my grandfather.
As a child I could see the four bullet holes across his chest that were reminders of day on the retreat from Mons he was mowed down by a machine gun.
He was triaged and left in a tent with about 200 other men. He asked for water and was refused as the little clean water they had whicj was reserved for those in the next tent who had a chance. He was told he would be dead by the morning.
During the night he heard the moans. He heard the moans gradually subside as his comrades died around him. He got it into his head that if he stayed awake and wiggled his toes he would live. The following day they came to clear the tent for a trench burial. Granddad was still alive so they transferred him. His was in terrific pain so they gave him several shots of morphine, the drug that comes from the poppy.
I think of my own brush with the British army in Northern Ireland. I was a volunteer on an ecumencal playscheme in the Ardoyne district of Belfast shortly after Operation Motorman. Members of the Provisional IRA opened fire at an army base on a flax mill from the roof of the school dinner hall which was being used by the playscheme.. The British returned fire and for the first time in my life I knew the terror of being under fire. Trying to manage 50 excited children as bullets whistled around is not easy. However one of the IRA bullets killed a British soldier.
I found out afterwards how sordid war can be when I was beaten up by that soldier's comrades who swamped the area in force.
So my act of remembrance is not about glorifying warfare or fanning the flames of nationalism. It is about remembering what war does to individuals, families, communities and whole nations. I find remebrance Sunday a helpful time when I can pray and lead prayers, for the healing of the nations.
