Poppies and Remembrance Sunday

2009′s Remembrance Sunday is on 8th November and, with the British obsession with protocol, this year has seen a pretty arcane debate about when, where and for how long you should wear the poppy.

Some say you ‘can’ wear it from the launch of the British Legion’s Poppy Appeal – which was on 22nd October. The BBC chooses a date and time for all its presenters to start wearing their poppies – this year it was from 6.00am onwards on 24th October.
Others declare that you should only wear the poppy on the left lapel and between 1st November until Armistice Day on 11th November.

The whole point is remembrance and the enduring acknowledgment of the greatest debt of all. It is hard to accept any notion of putting a limitation on such an act in the name of etiquette.

In Argyll, the 2009 Remembrance Day will have a sharp contemporary edge on the Isle of Mull. The community of Kintra in the Ross of Mull will be remembering 20 year-old Private Robert McLaren from the Black Watch, who died 4 weeks into his service in Afghanistan, on 11th June this year, in an explosion near Kandahar in Helmand Province.