Poppy Appeal

[Ferguson73uk]

I just thought you'd all like to know this.... As you may be aware, I'm writing a piece on my Great Uncle, 2/8th Worcs. and RMLI who committed suicide after the Greta War after suffering from shellshock. As a teacher, I felt moved to present a special assembly on the topic at school last Thursday. As a result we completely sold out of all the boxes of poppies we had been given within an hour.

Who says that youngsters don't care?

Jonathan

[Guest Simon Bull]

My wife (also a teacher) has given talks for Remembrance Day, and ahead of the history school trip to the Western Front, on my grandfather, the officer in his tank who was killed when my grandfather was taken prisoner and upon men who feature on the village War Memorial which I have research. She never finds that they elicit an inappropriate response. The pupils are always attentive.

She is not a history teacher so she did not go on the most recent trip to the Western Front which followed her most recent talks, but said that the children came back full of appropriate talk about what they had seen. They were particularly impressed by some members of the New Zealand forces who danced a haka at the Menin Gate. Apparently the consensus view was that they could see why the Germans had lost the war!

All this serves to illustrate that the young people today are no different from earlier generations in the sense that appropriate and considered presentation elicit appropriate responses.