History UsefulNotes / ThePoppy

* The UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} game ''VideoGame/CannonFodder'' features a poppy on the box. In a case of DramaticallyMissingThePoint, the game was [[http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ap2/dissent/poppy.html blasted by the Daily Star tabloid]] for that ''only''. It was bad enough that even ''Magazine/AmigaPower'' ended up reprinting issues featuring the game's box art on their cover when [[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope the Royal British Legion decided to enter the fray]].

The main event is the two-minutes silence, one minute for each World War. "The Last Post" is played by buglers (similar to "Taps" to Americans, but a different tune), and Big Ben (the great bell at the Houses of Parliament) or a local bell chimes eleven. The two-minutes silence takes place on Armistice Day, 11 November itself, as well, unless that falls on a Sunday; in recent years many shops and other public services have re-introduced the habit of stopping all activity for the silence. In Australia, Britain, and Canada this is known as Remembrance Day. In the UK, television presenters generally begin wearing the poppy a few weeks beforehand and continue to wear it until the latter of Armistice Day or Remembrance Sunday is over, while in Australia and New Zealand they will be worn on on ANZAC day and Rememberance Day themselves. The BBC has [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/11/poppies_and_presenters.html guidelines]] on the topic, which shows wearing one isn't actually mandatory. However failing to wear a poppy is likely to cause complaints, as is starting to wear them too late, or too early.

The main event is the two-minutes silence, one minute for each World War. "The Last Post" is played by buglers (similar to "Taps" to Americans, but a different tune), and Big Ben (the great bell at the Houses of Parliament) or a local bell chimes eleven. The two-minutes silence takes place on Armistice Day, 11 November itself, as well, unless that falls on a Sunday; in recent years many shops and other public services have re-introduced the habit of stopping all activity for the silence. In Australia, Britain, and Canada this is known as Remembrance Day. In the UK, television presenters generally begin wearing the poppy a few weeks beforehand and continue to wear it until Armistice Day is over, while in Australia and New Zealand they will be worn on on ANZAC day and Rememberance Day themselves. The BBC has [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/11/poppies_and_presenters.html guidelines]] on the topic, which shows wearing one isn't actually mandatory. However failing to wear a poppy is likely to cause complaints, as is starting to wear them too late, or too early.

Scarce heard amid the guns below."''

If you're watching British or Canadian TV programmes of the live variety in late October and early November, or New Zealand or Australian programmes in April,[[labelnote:*]] [[WeAllLiveInAmerica or you actually live in one of those countries]] [[/labelnote]]expect to see people wearing fake red flowers.

In Australia the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rats_of_Tobruk Rats of Tobruk]] veterans (and only those veterans) would use specific yellow poppies, but it is a rarity these days due to most of them having passed on. There's also a purple poppy, introduced in 2007 by the charity Animal Aid, to commemorate the animal victims of war.

In the UK, this culminates in Remembrance Sunday, the closest Sunday to November 11th (the date on which the Armistice to end WWI was signed in 1918), which has a march past of veterans at The Cenotaph, the national war memorial in Whitehall, central London. It involves the laying of large wreaths of poppies, by UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen, the [[UsefulNotes/BritishPoliticalSystem Prime Minister and other political party leaders]], and many military veterans' groups. These events are duplicated on a local scale in towns and villages across the UK, as virtually every one has a war memorial. In Australia and New Zealand, these events generally occur on ANZAC Day, the 25th of April (the date of the Gallipoli landing in 1915). In Canada it always occurs on November 11, which in most provinces is either a full statutory holiday or a half-holiday until noon.

* The ''Series/Endeavour'' episode [[Recap/EndeavourS2E03Sway "Sway"]] is set in early November 1966; most of the characters are wearing poppies, and one who isn't is reprimanded by his boss for not doing so.

* The Music/PinkFloyd album ''The Final Cut'' has a photo on the back cover of a soldier with a knife in his back, holding a film canister while standing in a field of poppies.
* The [[Series/DoctorWho Tenth Doctor]] wore one at the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood "The Family of Blood"]], showing respect to one of the characters from that two-parter who ended up surviving World War I.
** In the original [[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHumanNature novel version]], the equivalent character actually served in the Red Cross rather than the army, and is wearing a white poppy.

If you're watching British or Canadian TV programmes of the live variety in late October and early November, or New Zealand or Australian programmes in April, expect to see people wearing fake red flowers.

The white poppy: the white or peace poppy is a recently revived concept, originally developed by pacifist groups in the wake of WWI. Views on the matter are split. Some people oppose the wearing of white poppies, arguing that they show disrespect for veterans and the sacrifices made by the Armed Forces. Despite this, most wearers of the white poppy pair it with a traditional red one, saying that it represents the hope that such sacrifices will never need to be made again. This is sometimes a white feather instead, especially in New Zealand, where it was a symbol for a Maori Peace movement long before its use during the war. This is rather ironic considering that white feathers were originally handed out by ''pro-''war campaigners as symbols of cowardice, shaming men into joining the military. The practice is most associated with UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, but it showed up from time to time even before then (as mentioned in the novel and eventual film ''Film/TheFourFeathers'', set during UsefulNotes/TheRiverWar), and also saw use during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

The white poppy: the white or peace poppy is a recently revived concept, originally developed by pacifist groups in the wake of WWI. Views on the matter are split. Some people oppose the wearing of white poppies, arguing that they show disrespect for veterans and the sacrifices made by the Armed Forces. Despite this, most wearers of the white poppy pair it with a traditional red one, saying that it represents the hope that such sacrifices will never need to be made again. This is sometimes a white feather instead, especially in New Zealand, where it was a symbol for a Maori Peace movement long before its use during the war. (This is rather ironic considering white feathers were originally handed out by ''pro-''war campaigners as symbols of cowardice, shaming men into enlisting for the army in UsefulNotes/WW1). In Australia the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rats_of_Tobruk Rats of Tobruk]] veterans (and only those veterans) would use specific yellow poppies but it is a rarity these days due to most of them having passed on. There's also a purple poppy, introduced in 2007 by the charity Animal Aid, to commemorate the animal victims of war.

-> Because the war to end all wars ... didn't.

In UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} and UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland, the poppy is more controversial. Anywhere between 200,000 and 400,000 Irish men fought in the First World War [[labelnote:Longer version]] Due to the tense politics of the time, there was no conscription in Ireland. Instead, people joined either for the steady wage, or in the belief that the Home Rule bill would finally be passed after the war, making Ireland self-governing again. History would quickly overtake that last one.[[/labelnote]] but the [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishRevolution violent]] [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles history]] between the two nations makes for a rather fraught subject. In the North, the poppy is widely considered an implicitly Unionist statement of support for the British Army, notorious for killing civilians and colluding with Loyalist paramilitaries during UsefulNotes/TheTroubles. Those same Loyalist paramilitaries are also known to wear the poppy to represent their own dead. The situation is a little less tense in the Republic, but the [[CaptainObvious controversy remains]]. The Republic has its own official Day of Commemoration for all Irish war dead in July, for which poppies are not worn, and the state generally makes a gesture of some kind in November at the Dublin RBL ceremony. Instead, Republicans[[labelnote:*]] Of all stripes, not congruent with extremists or the IRA here[[/labelnote]] will often wear the Easter Lily, that commemorates all those who died in the cause of Irish freedom[[labelnote:†]]Nowadays, it is often unhesitatingly held to represent ''all'' Irish war dead too, even those who served in the British army during the two World Wars[[/labelnote]][[labelnote:*]] This comes with its ''own'' controversies in the North, as like the poppy, it is a political statement, and worn by some in commemoration of members of the Official and Provisional IRA. Northern Ireland. It's never simple. [[/labelnote]]. Still, as the years have passed and the Peace Process in the North has taken hold, Ireland and Britain have made more and more gestures to each other's dead, and fostered a shared sense of the grief and sadness of war, which is what Remembrance is ''about'', after all.

In UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} and UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland, the poppy is more controversial. Anywhere between 200,00 and 400,000 Irish men fought in the First World War [[labelnote:Longer version]] Due to the tense politics of the time, there was no conscription in Ireland. Instead, people joined either for the steady wage, or in the belief that the Home Rule bill would finally be passed after the war, making Ireland self-governing again. History would quickly overtake that last one.[[/labelnote]] but the [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishRevolution violent]] [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles history]] between the two nations makes for a rather fraught subject. In the North, the poppy is widely considered an implicitly Unionist statement of support for the British Army, notorious for killing civilians and colluding with Loyalist paramilitaries during UsefulNotes/TheTroubles. Those same Loyalist paramilitaries are also known to wear the poppy to represent their own dead. The situation is a little less tense in the Republic, but the [[CaptainObvious controversy remains]]. The Republic has its own official Day of Commemoration for all Irish war dead in July, for which poppies are not worn, and the state generally makes a gesture of some kind in November at the Dublin RBL ceremony. Instead, Republicans[[labelnote:*]] Of all stripes, not congruent with extremists or the IRA here[[/labelnote]] will often wear the Easter Lily, that commemorates all those who died in the cause of Irish freedom[[labelnote:†]]Nowadays, it is often unhesitatingly held to represent ''all'' Irish war dead too, even those who served in the British army during the two World Wars[[/labelnote]][[labelnote:*]] This comes with its ''own'' controversies in the North, as like the poppy, it is a political statement, and worn by some in commemoration of members of the Official and Provisional IRA. Northern Ireland. It's never simple. [[/labelnote]]. Still, as the years have passed and the Peace Process in the North has taken hold, Ireland and Britain have made more and more gestures to each other's dead, and fostered a shared sense of the grief and sadness of war, which is what Remembrance is ''about'', after all.

In UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} and UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland, the poppy is more controversial. Anywhere between 200,00 and 400,000 Irish men fought in the First World War [[labelnote:Longer version]] Due to the tense politics of the time, there was no conscription in Ireland. Instead, people joined either for the steady wage, or in the belief that the Home Rule bill would finally be passed after the war, making Ireland self-governing again. History would quickly overtake that last one.[[/labelnote]] but the [[TheIrishRevolution violent]] [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles history]] between the two nations makes for a rather fraught subject. In the North, the poppy is widely considered an implicitly Unionist statement of support for the British Army, notorious for killing civilians and colluding with Loyalist paramilitaries during UsefulNotes/TheTroubles. Those same Loyalist paramilitaries are also known to wear the poppy to represent their own dead. The situation is a little less tense in the Republic, but the [[CaptainObvious controversy remains]]. The Republic has its own official Day of Commemoration for all Irish war dead in July, for which poppies are not worn, and the state generally makes a gesture of some kind in November at the Dublin RBL ceremony. Instead, Republicans[[labelnote:*]] Of all stripes, not congruent with extremists or the IRA here[[/labelnote]] will often wear the Easter Lily, that commemorates all those who died in the cause of Irish freedom[[labelnote:†]]Nowadays, it is often unhesitatingly held to represent ''all'' Irish war dead too, even those who served in the British army during the two World Wars[[/labelnote]][[labelnote:*]] This comes with its ''own'' controversies in the North, as like the poppy, it is a political statement, and worn by some in commemoration of members of the Official and Provisional IRA. Northern Ireland. It's never simple. [[/labelnote]]. Still, as the years have passed and the Peace Process in the North has taken hold, Ireland and Britain have made more and more gestures to each other's dead, and fostered a shared sense of the grief and sadness of war, which is what Remembrance is ''about'', after all.