Why I Wear A Poppy
So about Channel 4 newsreader, Jon Snow, refusing to wear a poppy on the telly disturbs me for one reason only. Apparently he describes the peer-pressure for him to wear the little paper flower as "poppy fascism".
I think he should have the right to do as he pleases...but "fascism"?
I know why I wear a poppy. I have a Father who fought in the second world war and his birthday always falls on or around Remembrance Sunday. He's 86 on Monday. He served with the Polish Free Navy on a battleship that was part of the North Atlantic Convoys.
But before that, as a teenager, he had been captured by the Russians who had partitioned Poland as part of the pact with Nazi Germany. He spent more than a year in a Siberian concentration camp. He survived, of course, but many of his friends and fellow countrymen did not.
That was a real experience of fascism.
So now we're free to choose whether to wear a poppy or not. Thankfully no one forces us to wear a swastika either.
