Around about this time the press start reporting stories about poppy sellers and remembrance day. They aren't usually stories about really understanding the true concept of remembrance day, or a reflection on the vast human cost of war, or even the tireless and largely voluntary work poppy sellers and the British legion undertake on the high streets of Britain which allows Remembrance Sunday to continue well after many of the combatants of the two world wars are no longer here today, and in the case of the war it was originally intended to remember - pretty much every one of them. No it is usually an excuse to print some story about some "elf n safety jobsworth" banning pins, or in most cases an excuse to bash Germany, and exert the basest of "patriotic" sentiment about how Britain won the war, kind of missing the actual point of remembrance day, but we'll touch on that later.
For this post we look at this story about how German owned Aldi banned poppy sellers from one of their stores, by not actually banning them at all. We start with this ominous opening narrative.
"Once they fought them on the beaches. Seventy years later it seems they are fighting them in the aisles."
Seventy years. Perhaps we should start doing a bit more live and let live, after seven decades??
"But this time the enemy is the German-owned Aldi supermarket"
Oh do fuck off with the rhetoric. The Third Reich was a tad worser than a low budget supermarket chain. Glad to see that grown up British attitude to Germany shining through.
"It has infuriated war veterans by refusing to let them sell remembrance poppies in one of its stores."
I could see how that would cause ructions. But this sounds like a solid piece of Mail flat earth news though. So let's read on.
"Volunteers from the Royal British Legion asked the manager whether they could set up a stall in the supermarket to to raise money for the charity in the run up to Remembrance Sunday."
I can see why they would do that, a large catchment area of people in one visible space.
"The reply seemed little more than a declaration of war."
Oh Jeez Louise, can they give the war slurs a rest?
"The veterans were told they would not be allowed in the store itself. They would have to stand outside in the cold – and for two days only."
Hmm that's a bit tight. We are talking only one store aren't we, not a blanket ban throughout Aldis though? As it isn't clear in the article.
"The veterans usually run their annual Poppy Appeal stall in the Co-op supermarket at Great Harwood in Lancashire."
This year, however, it is closed for a refit, so they wrote to the no-frills Aldi, the town’s only other supermarket, to see if it could help."
Right it is only one store.
Aldi responded to the story with this quote.
"Last night Aldi, which had pointed out the veterans could shelter under the ‘protective overhead canopy’ outside the store, made a sudden retreat.
It announced the Great Harwood veterans could come in from the cold after all.
‘Requests to collect in-store or leave collection tins in-store are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and due to Mr Myerscough’s age, we will gladly allow him to collect in store,’ a statement said."
Well I'll admit that the store in question was perhaps being a bit tight in not letting older fund raisers into the main store building in the height of autumn. That isn't the problem with the story. It was a bad call on behalf of whoever runs this store. There is no indication that anyone of German origin initiated this call, so the German connection is irrelevant and no indication that they were banning the poppy sellers from fund raising full stop either. The Mail can't help get a Nazi dig in anyway.
"The Aldi chain was founded by Karl and Theo Albrecht, both of whom fought for the Nazis in the Second World War. Theo died earlier this year, leaving Karl as the world’s tenth richest man, worth £14.7billion."
In what capacity they fought for the Third Reich is not mentioned. I could point out that the Mail and the Nazis weren't exactly strange bedfellows during the 30's but that would just be petty.
Stories like this, apart from being reported in the most childish and John Bull pub patriot manner, are actually in my opinion a mockery of what remembrance day is all about. It wasn't conceived as a day to point fingers at the other combat nation, or to dwell on who started what, and who won whatever battle. It was a reminder of the enormous human cost, a cost borne on for the most part on ordinary guys from all walks of life. Thrust into the fiery receiving end of the worst excesses of human evil and destructiveness, and that each red poppy signified a life lost, a soul snuffed out, a loved one vanquished. That is the horrific end product of the worst of human nature unleashed and that is the real purpose of remembrance day. It is now almost seven decades since the end of the last world war, and it seems that the likes of the Mail haven't really learned much at all in that time.
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