Letters - 23 October 2015
From white poppies to support for refugees
White poppies
This will be the third year that Witney Friends have laid a mixed wreath of red and white poppies on the war memorial during the morning civic ceremony on Remembrance Day.
We have asked the Royal British Legion (RBL) for permission and have bought the red poppy wreath from them each time. A Witney Friend has then intermixed about sixteen white poppies with the red ones and securely attached them from behind.
The RBL have been very cooperative and friendly and last year Quakers were included in the official programme and will be again this year. Our experience has been very similar to that of Martin Biggs in his letter last week (16 October).
Frederick Noakes is named on the Witney war memorial. He was a Sibford scholar from a Quaker family and died, aged twenty-five, while serving in the air force during the second world war. It feels right that we should honour the sacrifice and courage of all those who died while at the same time giving the clear white poppy message: ‘War No More’. The writing on the legend, chosen by another Witney Friend, is a quote by Albert Einstein: ‘Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved through understanding.’
It seems as if the time may be right for many of us to work harmoniously with the Royal British Legion to promote this message.
Mahalla Mason
The refusal by the Royal British Legion (RBL) to allow Harrogate Quakers to lay a wreath of white poppies during their Remembrance Day service/parade (16 October) is not surprising. Veterans For Peace UK (VFP UK) has been similarly rebuffed and three years ago conducted an unauthorised ceremony to lay a wreath of white poppies at the London Cenotaph after the main parade. We have continued with our own ceremony each year under the banner ‘Never Again’ – the original Armistice Day slogan.
VFP UK will once again be laying a wreath of white poppies at the London Cenotaph, meeting in Whitehall Place at 1.30pm, to move off at 2pm. Supporters are very welcome and more details can be found on the VFP UK website. Unlike the RBL, which restricts its ceremony to remembering British and Commonwealth military, we will be commemorating all victims of war from all sides, both military and civilian. VFP UK members do not wear military regalia or medals and dissociate themselves from ceremonies which aid recruitment by glorifying war and conferring hero status on the military casualties of war.
John Bourton (VFP member)
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