I WISH to share my family’s story and then my husband’s. This is why we do not wear the poppy.

My grandfather died in 1975, a very lucky man indeed given he fought in the First Word War. He was born around 1892 and was about 22 in 1914. He did not talk about his time in France. One day my father took me to visit my grandfather, and we were wearing poppies. My grandfather asked me not to wear the poppy, and we removed them. This was all very quietly done and there was no further discussion in his house regarding our mistake. As my father drove me home he told me the following story.

“In about 1930 me and my two younger brothers were sitting by the fire whilst my mother was making the tea. My father came in from his work and took one look at the new shirts we had on. They were khaki. He ripped them off our backs in a terrible rage and literally threw them into the fire whilst shouting, ‘my boys will never wear khaki and that is the end of the matter.’ It was.”

My father was a Bevin Boy in the Second World War and his two younger brothers were not conscripted. My grandfather actually knew the horrors of war and protected his children from it, and deplored the glorification of war in all its forms.

A few years ago I told my husband this story and he told me his grandfather’s story. His grandfather had been an officer in the First World War and he was also a very lucky man who lived into his old age. During the Second World War he received call-up papers. They were also flung into the fire and no more was said or done on that matter.

Those who know war, really know war, do not glorify it.

What sort of state are we that sends young men off to their deaths and yet can only care for the physically and mentally wounded who return by charitable donations?

Please share these two stories of men who fought in the First World War as an act of remembrance. Real remembrance for their lived experience too terrible to discuss but never long out of their minds. For their sakes and for the men who fought alongside them who either did not come home or came home damaged.

I also wish to add that making poppies is a good thing for the people doing the work, and all acts of remembrance are essential, but until there is a way of thoughtful remembrance that is not hijacked by politicians I won’t be wearing a poppy. I am happy to donate but cannot enter into the war fest that now develops at this time of year.

If you are are a politician who has sent young people to war, then you shame you self every time you put on that poppy.

Mary Baxter

Perthshire

THIS past week I have worn my poppy with pride, thinking of the brave, idealistic young men, like my uncle whom I never knew, another who was awarded the DC and bar and a great uncle who was one of only two volunteers from his home town to go to the Boer War.

I also have a very clear memory of a visit to the war cemetery at Verdun, and of a walk in silence through the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, with its roofless homes and bare interiors save for a sewing machine on a windowsill, a rusty bicycle or similar here and there, an impressive and deeply moving memorial to the massacre of the entire population, when all men and boys were shot in groups and the women and children locked in the church before it was set on fire.

These memories return when I read the excellent articles written by David Pratt, and such should be in the thoughts of all who commemorate the fallen of World War One. But this year I found myself so sickened by one commemoration ceremony report on TV that I felt I could not attend any such gathering, as the sheer hypocrisy of the event in that footage would, for me, taint my thoughts and memories. That scene was of Theresa May in France, laying a wreath and bowing her head in respect.

These young men she was supposed to be honouring died in the belief that they were fighting the “war to end all wars” and truly to honour them we should be doing everything in our power to stop and prevent any and every war, whether it affects us directly or not. Yet currently there are British servicemen embedded in Saudi Arabia helping with intelligence, computerised targeting systems etc, while British-made bombs rain down indiscriminately on a civilian population – including children in a bus – already on its knees and denied food, medicines and help through a blockaded port. Meanwhile, Theresa May and her ministers refuse to act on all pleas to shorten this horrific war by withdrawing military support services and licences to sell the these bombs.

But that’s alright, though – our military are not actually using the bombs, selling them is making money and boosting the economy, the Saudis are our friends and allies who need to be supported, even if they do attack children and execute people without trial, and anyway, it proves that we are a great world power. With the hypocrisy that stands in respect for the fallen while complicit in a war such as that in Yemen, Theresa May has plumbed new depths.

P Davidson

Falkirk

DISAPPOINTING (though not surprising) – and insulting to the Scottish dead – to hear the BBC still referring to “Anglo-French” commemoration of the Armistice. How much more appropriate, and respectful, would it be to refer to these doleful matters as “Franco-British”? After all it was France, and Belgium, which were laid waste, and the French lost many more men than the British.

On a more cheerful note, full marks to Alan Cumming for modelling his James VI and I accent on the craven trying-not-to-sound-Scottish accents of Michael Forsyth and Malcolm Rifkind. How we laughed at Malky’s “United Stets” and “Siviet Union”.

David Roche

Perth

HAVING lost relatives whom I never knew in both World Wars and watched my father spend 30 years dying from his wounds, I have a great deal of respect and sorrow for those who lost their lives in utterly pointless conflicts created by the stupidity and greed of those who rule us.

These wars did not end war – in fact we are still involved in the horror of mass murder here, there and everywhere for reasons which frequently elude me and, I suspect, most of those who get us involved in them too.

The publicity regarding the annual ceremony of remembrance continually refers to those who died with the anodyne term “The Fallen”, sanitising the fact that they were actually the slaughtered.

It is time we ceased to call the dead of our wars under the UK Government “The Fallen” and help our children to realise what has been done to the common soldier and innocent civilians by politicians by mourning the loss of “The Sacrificed”!

Les Hunter

Lanark