1917 - 2017

“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”
Douglas Adams

I was named after Fenner Brockway, who was a conscientious objector during the first world war. I very much admire him for that. In his shoes, I wonder whether the accusations of cowardice or the ethical question around staying at home while your contemporaries went to war would have swayed me. 

It was certainly a new kind of war, something which those early, enthusiastic volunteers would not have realised. Perhaps - I don't know, I'm no historian - it was the news about what was happening in the trenches that made conscription necessary. In the first day of the Somme, nearly sixty thousand servicemen were wounded, a third of those were killed. It's said that, in the end, everyone in Britain knew someone who'd been killed. Certainly by the finish there were over 350,000 British casualties. 

So, I've always had mixed feelings about wearing a poppy. I knew that the idea of the brave Tommies off to battle "the hun" was a fallacy but at the same time I felt it was right to remember those who had been through the war, willingly or otherwise, on our behalf. Consequently, I liked the idea of a white poppy and I always thought that the lack of tolerance shown towards people who wore them was indefensible.

And it's worse now; there's almost a question of one's patriotism* being called into question if you don't wear a poppy. Somehow, it seems to have been acquired by the UKIP/Brexit voting Little Englanders, whereas, of course, many, many nationalities fought against fascism, sometimes specifically for the British forces. 

Anyway, I gave it some thought and decided I'd wear one for my own reasons and no one else's. I bought this fellow at Heathrow, this morning, and here it is being modelled by my jacket in the Ale Station in Chorley, where the Minx and I met Dom for a drink, this evening. The perfect end to what was an unexpectedly entertaining day. 

*I'm not patriotic

****
No scales
0 words