The wreath laid by Friends in Ipswich. Photo: Lydia Vulliamy.
Quakers gather for Remembrance
Friends around the country marked Remembrance Day
Days before Quakers gathered for Remembrance Sunday, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) welcomed a decision by the Royal British Legion to promote remembrance for civilians for the first time.
According to the PPU, ‘up until last year, the Legion insisted that Remembrance Sunday should be concerned only with UK and allied armed forces personnel’. But the British Legion’s website now states: ‘We acknowledge innocent civilians who have lost their lives in conflict and acts of terrorism.’
However, the PPU noted that the Legion still uses ‘acknowledge’ in reference to civilians, unlike ‘remember’ for armed forces personnel, and urged it to promote remembrance for people of all nationalities affected by war.
The shift in tone came less than a week before around 100 people gathered for the PPU’s Alternative Remembrance Ceremony in London’s Tavistock Square. The PPU’s Amy Clark-Bryan opened the ceremony by quoting Eleanor Barton, one of the founders of white poppies in 1933: ‘If you can walk in the street wearing a white poppy, when everyone else has a red one, then I say you are a brave woman.’
All over the country, Quakers gathered to commit to work for peace. Hexham Friends held a peace vigil on 9 November in Hexham Abbey in conjunction with Churches Together, which according to Quaker Andrew Greaves has been held annually for more than fifteen years.
Friends in Harrogate, Bridgend, Ipswich, Skipton and Bury St Edmunds all laid white poppy wreathes, the latter with silence, poetry and prose. According to Jill Segger, Bury St Edmunds Meeting has never encountered hostility towards the white poppies in the four years it has taken part. ‘Radio Suffolk always runs an item on it and the local print media are very receptive,’ she said.
Hazel Shellens, clerk of Huntingdon Meeting in Godmanchester, said the Meeting sent a letter to The Hunts Post ‘to try and forestall the adverse comments on social media, which occurred in 2018 when we laid a wreath of white poppies, with a few red, for the first time. To our delight, it was published in full and unedited as the lead letter’.
However, in the week leading up to Remembrance Day, the PPU, which makes and distributes the white poppies, tweeted how sad they were to see abuse directed online at white poppy wearers. ‘We’re glad that thousands of people support [them].’
Robert Keeble told the Friend that Leeds Quakers planned to distribute 1,000 white poppies outside the Meeting house on 8 November, beating its 2018 record when ‘about 400 poppies were distributed in two hours’.
