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Somme 100 Poppy Lapel Pin


MatchFuzee

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Hmmmm, can't help feeling it's all a bit gimmicky, tbh. Another way for the latecomers to show just how deeply they care and how very special their personal act of remembrance is? I get very dubious when things start to become more about the people doing the remembering than they are about the people being remembered.

It's a great cause, of course, but if you feel that strongly, why not just put your 40 quid in the Poppy Appeal tin in November?

A bog standard plastic and paper poppy will do just fine for me.

 

All that being said - the soil collector chap has good taste in US flying jackets!

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As for actually trying to get there for the Commerations. It appears the local Marie's are have a competion who can be the most security concious. So much as I as wished to be there, Forget it , life's to short and I'll save a rain forest. Just go later in the year.:embarrassed:

 

PS Got me own fuse head from there anyway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have bought one of these. Each is dedicated to one of the 19,200 men killed on the 1st July 1916. Mine commerates Rifleman Archibald William Norris 300932 London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade) Coomerated at the Gommecourt British Cemetry No 2 Hebuterne.

 

I also have aasupevisor at work who is Geneolgy wizard. So Archibald born in Bourne End in 1894, he was single and was an Auctioneer's Clerk died aged 22. He also had a brother Reginald a year older. So I'll try and find out what happned to him

 

Inital research shows that the London Brigade was wholly Territoral Army brigade, so Archibald would have volounteered to go overseas and worn a small brass badge on his left chest with the words ' Imperial Volunteer'.

 

Also whe I was in the Somme region in 2006, for the 90th anniversary , a local farmer in the Gommecourt area gave me a British Fuse as a souvenir.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thanks for that. I couldn't find a picture. Funny enough a very close friend showed me a picture of her Grandfather. He is wearing uniform of the Duke Of Wellington's Regiment and the Pelican badge of the 62nd ( West Riding ) Division, which was Territorial Force, as it was then known, division. Initial research shows he was in Palistine, and may have been at Gallipoli. I shall wear my Poppy with pride on Friday.

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I find the whole thing with the names just another level of gimmicky to add to these, tbh.

For a start, the name you get with your badge will be someone who died on 1 July 1916 - not necessarily an actual Somme casualty.

And isn't this just a bit presumptuous of the RBL? They don't 'own' those names. As someone with a direct relative who was killed on the Somme on the 1st July I don't feel terribly comfortable about some complete stranger with no links to my relative whatsoever suddenly deciding that they have a 'connection' conferred by the RBL.

Fine if this sort of thing is your bag and you want to do some research to find out about 'your' casualty. But as someone from a family that has actively kept alive the memory of its Somme casualties for very nearly 100 years, it doesn't sit well with me at all.

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I was introduced properly to WW1 by the 10th Essex and Andy Robertshaw and the rest of No Man's Land. On the 90th Anniversary of the First Day as it happens. Respect for all combatants has been part of that ethos from the start. I would be dishonouring those who fell and those who mentored me if I thought any other way. My particular fascination is why do conflicts start? To have your hands in the earth and watch something come up is exciting, and uncomfortable sometimes. The oddest reaction for me was when at the site of an excavation of a mine crater near Passenchendale, the archeologists unearthed part of a horse collar. The site had been a farm. As you all know I trained at agriculutural college and am qualified with horses. The collar is the thing that transmits the power of the horse to the implement, they are hand made and cost a fortune. That someone who was a farmer would leave so quickly that something so valuable would be left behind struck me very deeply. It is only by trying to understand the motivations of individuals that you even stand a hope of realising what went on.

Edited by Tony B
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  • 3 weeks later...

Would the RBL have done better maybe by announcing their intention to do this in time for relatives and families to buy their 'family' poppy so they have one with the family connection, as it would appear now that there are three of these poppies with the names of my great uncles on them out there somewhere with little chance of us ever seeing them.

They could then sell the unclaimed names on to others who would hopefully cherish and research as you have and learn something about someone who was otherwise forgotten.

Does that make any sense or is it too late at night and I'm loosing the plot???

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They 'decided not to' (if they ever gave it any thought at all) because the whole thing would have been a massive administrative ballache. Much easier just to make these and flog them while allocating a random 1st July 1916 name to each, regardless of whether living relatives might find that mildly annoying, because that makes each sale more 'unique'.

Have been a lifelong supporter of the RBL - but feel they got this one fundamentally wrong.

But, hey, it's tough out there and as long as the cash is coming in, what's a few offended relatives of people who fought and died for their country 100 years ago, between friends?!

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