The business of Remembering

oppy season is here again, that time of year when politicians, celebrities and others compete to wear the biggest and most garish poppy. The media are on tenterhooks, waiting to spot a public figure without one, or even better someone wearing a white poppy or saying how they don’t believe in poppy day. The Guardian and Independent will run articles decrying the event, which will have the effect of raising the blood pressure of people across the country who have never served but feel the need to be OUTRAGED on behalf of those who have. Frankly I think this garish spectacle is getting worse every year, and I wonder if the time has come to rethink it.

I come from humble roots. Looking back over 100 years of ‘Appleby’ family history and you will find coal miners on Tyneside and farmers in Essex, all living in relative poverty. One direct side of my family has a long history of service with the Reserves. My great grandfather was in the TA before WW1, mobilising as a Private in a TA rifle Bn in 1914, before being invalided after the Battle of Loos. My Grandfather joined the TA in 1940, serving as an anti-tank gunner  in a long series of campaigns from Africa to Western Europe in 1945. Growing up I heard his stories of the war and thought they sounded exciting and fun.  I was too young and naïve to realise the deep horrors he saw and experienced that lurked beneath the surface of his bravado about nearly being killed at Alam Halfa, entering the minefields on the first night of Alamein, or going toe to toe with Tigers at Villers Bocage. To my youthful mind he had spent his twenties having a bloody good adventure, not risking his life in circumstances he didn’t necessarily want to be in

There were no decorations or medals for my family members. A citation recommending him for the Military Medal was found after his death. The award was never gazetted, and it was likely that he was written up at least twice for a gallantry award, but family legend being that his falling out with his Platoon Commander saw the end of the matter. What was telling though was that he never spoke of the horrific and desperate circumstances that saw him being written up for the award, only the circumstances of it going no further.

The other half of my family history involves many who were conscientious objectors, and who did not serve for strong and deeply held religious beliefs. As a child I did not understand this, nor what it meant to be a conscientious objector in the UK during the war. It was only as I got older that I began to realise the strength of moral courage required to not serve, to say the unpopular thing and to not give into peer pressure and sacrifice your deeply held beliefs in order to conform. To listen to how lifelong friends would refuse to talk to you ever again over your views was humbling. I am as equally proud of my family on this side, and use their example of courage and standing up for what they felt was right in my own approach to life. The manner in which this blog is written, challenging the status quo and pushing unpopular views is in its own way a small attempt to continue this tradition.

My own career saw me deploy several times before I left the world of Defence, onto TELIC and HERRICK and elsewhere. In many ways my experiences mirrored my relatives in that much of what I remember to this day is about the fun times, the excitement and adventure and the sense of purpose that came from being away. Standing at Basra Palace at night waiting for the helo pick up with machine gun fire in the background, then swooping through the skies towards Basra Airport in the dark in the back of an RAF Merlin with flares popping and being thrown about the skies as we dodged potential threats; flying up the Tigris in Baghdad towards the Green Zone in a Puma, gaining height to climb over bridges. In Afghanistan it was experiencing the lunacy of Kandahar and the boardwalk, flying into Bagram, or heading into the wilds of the Western desert and Herat.

I have mentally blocked out the darker memories. I can just about remember sitting alone under a table in my body armour when my base was being rocketed for the first time, hearing loud bangs, screams and feeling very vulnerable. If I think hard I can remember what it felt like to be ‘outside the wire’. Looking back I recall the sense of feeling as a naval reservist Officer, who had led a comfortable dull life, it was one hell of a culture shock to find myself with a loaded weapon on the ground. I remember the first few times it happened, the night before feeling worried, scared and alone. Sitting with my fears, feeling unable to articulate them to others. I also knew that I had to swallow it down, put on the face of command and act as a role model to the men and women around me who looked to me for leadership, guidance and an example of how to behave. It was then that I realised and understood all the things that my Grandfather had left unsaid. By the end it was routine, boring even. As you conquer your fears, you perhaps become blasé about what it is you are doing, and forget what caused the fear in the first place.

I don’t pretend to have a set of stirring stories. I was lucky enough to do some interesting things and meet some interesting people. I came home each time unscathed and without losing any friends in the process. I remain in utter awe and admiration for the men and women who served in the FOBS and daily went into harms way on foot patrol despite knowing how dangerous it was.  I do not pretend glory to which I am not entitled, and while my rack of medals has meaning to me, I would not pretend that ‘my war’ was anything other than a lot of relatively dull administration that occasionally got me into some adventures.

I have no particular emotional attachment to Remembrance Day, and feel no reason to get morose or withdrawn over it. It is a time of year to pause, give thanks and look to the future. But in recent years I feel that something has gone awry with the whole process.

Growing up in the early 1980s it was about watching parades of men from both world wars come together to pay respects. There was huge and genuine admiration from the crowd and more importantly a sense of humility. It felt that the day functioned as a national coping mechanism for a nation where most of the population had in some way lived through, or been impacted by the legacy of the war.

Today very few are left who remember the war – even the youngest babe in arms in 1945 is today well into their 70s. The youngest UK veteran of WW2 will probably be about 88-90 years old, and much as with the end of the First World War veterans, their numbers will soon dwindle rapidly and then pass forever into memory.

Watching the parade in London now seems to involve an ever more eclectic combination of random organisations, people with ever more tenuous links to the military and a growing number of post war veterans who may never have seen an actual campaign, but who feel the need to vocally campaign for a medal anyway. At the same time the whole process of remembrance appears to have been caught up in a wider process of ostentatious displays of poppy memorabilia and ‘proper remembering’ (as ARRSE users call it).

I think we have lost sight of what the act of remembrance actually is – a simple pause for two minutes to reflect, give thanks and look forward, wrapped up in a simple service. The growing ‘remembrance industry’ seeking to milk every opportunity to raise funds or be outraged at some manufactured incident seems to have lost sight of this.

As a nation we seem to have adopted the two minute silence as an emotional support blanket. At the slightest hint of a tragedy impacting on some people, people are falling over themselves to associate themselves to the event. This year alone it feels as if many awful tragedies have occurred where nationwide two minute silences are called regardless of how many were involved or directly impacted by it. 

This year we will see two nationwide silences called on both the 11^th and 12^th of November for the same purpose. Some people will monitor it religiously. Others will be silent but their eyes will dart around seeking people to take umbrage with for perceived ‘offences’ involving not observing it or not wearing a poppy. They are so busy with the business of remembrance, they forget to actually remember.

I have grown increasingly concerned at the manner in which manufactured outrage focuses on any organisation or individual that challenges the Poppy status quo, by not wearing one. If you are wearing one only because everyone else is wearing one, then perhaps it is time to ask whether the Poppy has become a victim of its own success.

As we move into the world where we are over a century on from the events of WW1, perhaps the time has come to ask if it is time to evolve the service of Remembrance, and perhaps do it differently. I do feel that the need to remember is always appropriate, but that the means by which a simple silence has become a business and outrage outlet to sell papers is increasingly distasteful. 

We all choose to remember differently, what worries me is the way that as a nation we seem to have turned Remembrance Day from a meaningful service into a choreographed pantomime with heros and villains, and perhaps lost sight of why it is that we pause and give thanks to those who have served.

My strictly personal view is that the Poppy may have done much good, but overexposure and a relentless drive by some to turn a simple symbol into something else disturbs me. The fundraising the RBL does is fantastic, but the increasingly sinister 'poppy facism' from others is not.

As the numbers of veterans, or those touched by war reduces year on year, perhaps we need to think again about how we as a nation pause to say thank you and ask if the highly ritualised November process is still the right way to do it. Perhaps in future a Bank Holiday in the summer, and give families time to be together and celebrate, with a short service on the 11^th November is the way instead?   

For me personally I have long since stopped wearing a poppy except when I attend the Remembrance Service. I happily thrust spare change on RBL collectors, and am proud to stop and talk with them and learn of their experiences.

On the 12th November I will fall silent and remember both sides of my family and their very different wars. I will be thankful that I and all my friends repeatedly returned in one piece and I will look to a more optimistic future. But I take pride in not wearing a poppy, because I am thankful that I live in a society which gives me the freedom of choice to do so.