please empty your brain below
Maybe the 2004 campaign was longer because it was 90 years since the start of the first world war.

Barry | 25.10.12 - 7:43 a.m. | #

I pay no attention to the formal launch of the 'campaign'. Buying and wearing a poppy is something I do in November, never earlier. What the British Legion think I should do is irrelevant: the act of Remembrance does not belong to them.

Scruffy Stoat | 25.10.12 - 8:03 a.m. | #

I get my Poppy on the Saturday or the Sunday morning of the Poppy "Day" weekend, so I can wear it to go to the local service by the towns war memorial. Then I often wear it for a few days afterwards because I forget to take it off.
I wonder if they sell more by starting early, because people will purchase more than one, as they get dirty or lost.
For business Christmas starts in late summer, and Easter starts soon after Christmas, and of course we had several years build up to the Olympics.
The BBC start pushing their "children in need" appeal some time before the event. So maybe the Poppy Company's 17 days promotion shrinks by comparison. However I think a week would be early enough.
Hype thing up, people will spend/buy,
expect a rush for James Bond "Skyfall" tomorrow!

John | 25.10.12 - 8:24 a.m. | #

Would it be worth looking at the amount of money raised each year, to see if extra days do in fact bring in more funds.

Waterhouse | 25.10.12 - 8:37 a.m. | #

I've never bought one in my life, nor have I ever worn one. I usually contribute, but it's all a bit touchy feely these days for me.

Dave | 25.10.12 - 8:44 a.m. | #

I love the incidental way in which this post charts the rise of the BBC News website. Not that I would admit to copying out all the page IDs and working out how quickly they increase or anything...

Dave | 25.10.12 - 9:12 a.m. | #

Due to many years of having to suddenly produce poppies to wear at Scouts' church parades, I will have to admit to re-using poppies which must have been bought several years ago now. After all, a few days a year doesn't exactly wear them out.And I won't even open the can of worms that is 'should charity be supporting veterans of wars that the government has chosen to send troops to?' It's not as if there are any WWI veterans left now.

allotmentqueen | Homepage | 25.10.12 - 10:01 a.m. | #

Let's overdo it !. Paying respect and wearing a symbol is something that should not diminish with time.
Giving a nod to those that gave and continue to give their lives or health once a year is the least we can surely do.

| 25.10.12 - 11:28 a.m. | #

I think that poppy "season" is generally too long. I appreciate that perhaps the longer they are on sale, the more money they may make, but two - three weeks is a long while to wear a poppy (or any other "flag" for that matter).

Each year I have this dilemma. Should I wear a poppy or not? I will usually put money in a collecting tin, sometimes more than once because I think it's a good cause, but do I wear the poppy? I normally find that however I fix it it I normally lose it after a couple of days.

I think that wearing a poppy shows support and helps to make others aware, but 18 days?

Incidently, the British Legion supports all servicemen, not just those from WWI. However, I do agree that the government should provide more support. Like with many worthy causes, it shouldn't just be left to voluntary contributions.

Roger | 25.10.12 - 11:44 a.m. | #

Allotmentqueen: You have opened the proverbial can of worms! Agreed, successive governments have not done nearly enough to help ex-service people come back to civilian life; for one thing, it's reckoned that they make up between 3% and 10% of the British prison population...
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/criminology/research/current-projects/jt146soldiers

Governments are also deficient in other areas of course, which is why we need charities, surely?

Bob Lindsay-Smith | 25.10.12 - 11:46 a.m. | #

On the same theme, did we always have two lots of two minutes silence each year?

Ian Brooker | 25.10.12 - 12:21 p.m. | #

@Ian B

No we didn't - someone will post when we went back to having the 2 mins on the 11th AND on Remembrance Sunday, rather than just the latter. It was relatively recently.

Paul | 25.10.12 - 1:33 p.m. | #

I think the extra 2 minutes silence on 11/11 dates back to the Major years - 1995 at the time of the 50th anniversary of the end of the second world war I think

KissenMe | 25.10.12 - 6:55 p.m. | #

I wrote about the double two minute silence here: http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2006/11/four-minute-silence.html

We should make our mind up whether to go for the 11th, or the Sunday closest to the 11th, and then remember properly.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 25.10.12 - 7:24 p.m. | #

poppycreep - my new favourite word.

Suse | 25.10.12 - 8:13 p.m. | #

Simplistic yes, but the way I see it, those who are going to buy a poppy will do so regardless of whether there are 6 perchasing days or 60. Those who aren't, won't!

So by that reasoning, the only extra funds raised due to the longer selling period would presumably come from people replacing lost poppies, or visitors to the country and observing everyone else wearing them!

CornishCockney | 26.10.12 - 12:12 a.m. | #

Underground trains have started wearing Poppies too-well at least one has:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliang2006/8125451666/in/pool-london_tube/

Is this a first?

HoosierSands | Homepage | 27.10.12 - 9:41 a.m. | #

A key factor in the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club" by Dorothy Sayers, written and set in 1928, when WW1 was still a very recent memory, is that the body of an old soldier is found just after the Two Minutes Silence unadorned by a poppy - from which it is ooncluded that he must have died the previous day.

Nowadays we would have to conclude he'd been dead for weeks!

If wearing a poppy only on Nov 11th itself was enough for a General in the 1920s, it's good enough for me.



As for "Our Glorious Dead" - yes, many of them were brave, but they were primarily victims of failures of diplomacy, greed, jingoism, and other human frailties.
There is nothing glorious about warfare: a last resort which proves nothing except that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the argument, ultimately what matters is might, not right.

timbo | 28.10.12 - 7:09 p.m. | #

Let's overdo it - I agree! Timbo - no, there's nothing glorious about warfare, and it does represent a failure of government and diplomacy.

However, what about those who stood between us and Hitler? At the very least, they gave up to six years of their youth to defeat Nazism.

A lot of them gave life and limb and peace of mind too.

They and their families have lived with the fall out from their war service for over 70 years. Are 18 days *really* OTT for us post-war babies to put up with?

As for 'ultimately what matters is might, not right' - the Nazis were very mighty indeed, and right won on this occasion.

Kate | 29.10.12 - 12:44 p.m. | #











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