Journal

Why I'm wearing a poppy

Photograph by Olga[FR]

Seventy years ago, the paths of my family’s lives changed irrevocably. For my professional soldier grandfather, the war began perhaps the most fulfilling period of his life, taking him and his family around the world. For my civilian grandfather, it was a very different experience, of places and horrific events that had a profound impact on him. He finished the war a more withdrawn, less sociable man, visibly affected by what he had gone through.

While the war had a huge — and in lots of ways, good — impact on the social order, it also removed the right for that generation, and very often their children too, to control their futures: the event defined them, their relationships, their choices long after the fighting finished.

It’s why I’m wearing a poppy this week, not just as a little tribute to two very different men who showed a bravery I know I couldn’t emulate, but to their wives and children who could never be the same as a result of 1939-45.