The Poppy

This is my father, Bill Nisbet, who served in the Royal Navy during World War 2.

He only ever told us funny stories about his war service. He served in Gibraltar, North Africa, Freetown in West Africa and Port London in South Africa. He got in tow with some Americans in Sierra Leone and told a long (and fairly boring - when you were hearing it for the umpteenth time) story about stealing a jeep and driving it into the harbour in Freetown. But he said nothing about hauling the bodies of dead sailors out of the Atlantic Ocean. And that was one of the things he and his shipmates had to do. 

He was a fitter in Alexander Stephen's shipyard in Govan and I could never really understand why he was allowed to sign up for war service: I always thought his job would be one of the 'reserved' occupations in wartime. 

Before him, his uncles served in World War 1, including one poor soul who joined the Navy at 17 but never made it out of Portsmouth before he died of pneumonia. 

That's not to mention my mother's family: her father was a career soldier who served in Gallipoli, then in India and finally in Ireland. Her mother was a nurse in France. That's where she met my grandfather. 

Now I find myself feeling bullied over these poppies. I don't give a rat's arse about wearing a poppy. The poppy used to be advertised as being in support of the 'Earl Haig Fund', Earl Haig being one of the absolutely useless commanders of the British Army during World War 1. There was a time when I refused to wear a red poppy because his name was attached to it - with the approval of my father and grandfather, let me say - and bought a white one, the peace poppy, but then I gave up on that too. 

But every year the same nonsense comes up: you have to buy a poppy. You have to support the British Legion (do they do anything in Scotland? If they do, I've never seen it). You have to support the 'veterans' (a US term). 

Frankly, if we in the UK supported 'veterans,' they wouldn't be homeless and sleeping rough. They wouldn't be suffering from Post traumatic Stress Disorder and getting no treatment. And we wouldn't think a big parade at the Cenotaph, not to mention a Remembrance ceremony on TV, would be enough to support them. 

I think what most annoys me about the poppy business is that the people who are so determined to make people like me buy a poppy have come nowhere near war themselves. They have no relatives who have suffered in a war. They don't have to deal day to day with people injured in wars - especially the illegal, unjust and pointless wars in the Middle East. And worst of all, they seem to be the worst kind of British Nationalists: people who think anything the UK does has to be good because, well, the British Empire said so. 

So please, if you have to put your money anywhere, get the UK government to put it into a fund that would support veterans, like the VA, the support system that the USA set up a long time ago for former service people. It might not be perfect, but it's better than making people buy a poppy.