Poppy sellers have admitted they ‘need all the help they can get’ amid fears the number of volunteers are declining and fewer people are wearing the historic remembrance insignia.
Organisers told the Daily Mail how years of abuse and ageing volunteers have created a perfect storm, which left them scrambling for help ahead of this year’s Remembrance Day.
There are fears that fewer people wearing poppies and a shortage of younger volunteers coming through could be catastrophic for future appeals.
In a rallying call to the younger generation, volunteers have urged the youth of today to step up amid fears that the typical older volunteers are finding it increasingly difficult to spend weeks dedicating their time in the cold and rain.
The Poppy Appeal is the Royal British Legion’s (RBL) largest fundraising campaign, held annually during the Remembrance period. They also generate funds through gifts and donations, but the poppy appeal is their primary source of revenue.
The poppy serves as a sign of remembrance for the war dead and to raise money for veterans, but it has increasingly become the centre of a debate over patriotism and national pride.
During this year’s appeal, RBL volunteers in Penarth, South Wales, were allegedly met with ‘abuse and threats’ as they put poppies and flags on a lamp post ahead of Remembrance Day.
An inquiry has been launched by police after volunteers said they were ‘subjected to horrendous abuse by mindless left-wing idiots’.
Volunteer Karen Jones said: ‘In a small, friendly town, such as ours, you do not expect poppy appeal volunteers to get abuse when putting up memorial lamp post poppies and flags for the Remembrance period.
‘Our volunteers were approached this morning and met with abuse and threats to come back and take the poppies and flags down.
‘The Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal is not political, it is to remember the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that people have “Free Speech”.
Social media is also awash with people noticing fewer poppies around, with some admitting they no longer feel safe wearing the poppy in case they are targeted with abuse.
Those on the left claim the right have ‘hijacked’ the poppy, leaving those wanting to pay their respects to the war dead fearing they look like they are ‘far-right’.
Former UKIP leader Henry Bolton sparked a debate by writing: ‘It’s incredibly disappointing to see how few people are wearing poppies this year. It’s as though people have either forgotten the sacrifice others made for them, or they simply don’t care.’
But replying to him, one user wrote: ‘The poppies have been co-opted by racist wingnuts who decorate their entire houses, lamp posts and vehicles with poppy-related tat and scream “Where’s your f****n’ poppy”. Not surprised people are put off, to be honest.’
Another said: ‘The left have turned the poppy into a far right symbol now.’
And a third shared a picture of a Nazi swastika, which had allegedly been put up on his gate because he had a Union Jack and Lest We Forget poppy flag flying high in his garden.
The RBL says it has distributed 30 million paper poppies and six million poppy pins every year for the last decade. And while it said it would never criticise someone for not wearing the poppy, the public often slams public figures if they neglect to wear the symbol.
When footballer James McClean, who was born in Derry, decided not to wear a poppy because of the British Army’s part in the Troubles, he received death threats. His dissidence each year pursued him throughout his career, and he continues to be the target of abuse.
Stuart Lees, who has been a Poppy Appeal coordinator in Ashbourne for more than 20 years, told the Daily Mail they are ‘very much’ struggling with getting volunteers, ‘particularly the street sellers’.
He said: ‘We’re very fortunate we get help with the local cadets, they come out one weekend. We’ve got some stalwarts that do it every year, but there’s very few up and coming. Everybody’s busy working, that’s the problem.
‘We have struggled in previous years, to be perfectly honest. One or two of our regular collectors are getting quite elderly, and it’s becoming more of a challenge when they’ve got to stand out on the streets for a fortnight. It’s a long slog.
‘I’ve got a couple, but not many. It’s been the same people for the last however many years.
Mr Lees, whose branch raised £32,000 last year, also revealed how his team of poppy sellers have come under abuse from members of the public.
The 65-year-old, who was a fireman for 30 years, said: ‘You always get a little bit of abuse every year. What the year is, what happened, you always get the one, don’t you? So they do get a bit of abuse from time to time.’
When questioned what kind of abuse they get, he said: ‘I wouldn’t like to repeat it. It’s the nastiness, to be honest. It’s a minority, but some people don’t need room to moan.
‘I think they just like to show their aggression at some people.’
John Dwyer, president of the Royal British Legion’s Nantwich and District Branch, also warned they need more youngsters to step up, but said they are not short of volunteers just yet.
Mr Dwyer, whose branch raised £64,000 last year, told the Mail: ‘We would love to see a lot more young people involved. That would be brilliant. We need more of those. At the end of the day, at some point, the older people, we are going to be running out of them.’
Talking about the impact of the Poppy Appeal, he said: ‘It’s absolutely critical that we do it. The fact the public here respond so well to the efforts of our collectors and want to support the military, it is critically important that we keep this going.’
In a message to the younger generation, he said: ‘Please come and join us and be a part of this wonderful network supporting our military personnel. Military personnel do need that support, I would urge youngsters to think about joining us.’
In 2023, 78-year-old poppy seller veteran Jim Henderson claimed he was punched and kicked by a mob of pro-Palestine protesters.
Jim Henderson, who served with the Army in Northern Ireland, said he was set upon while manning a stall at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station.
Mr Henderson, who served in the Royal Corps of Signals, 32 Signal Regiment during the Troubles, said: ‘I was getting shoved backwards, in danger of falling, and one of them stood on my foot and split my toe.
‘So I thought I had to get the money out of here. So I went down, and as I bent down, someone punched me in the back. And then I got another punch in my side.’
He said that he managed to get up and was rescued by three ladies in red railway uniforms. ‘I’ve never known anything like it,’ he said.
Police subsequently dropped investigations into the apparent attack due to ‘insufficient evidence’.
This year, the number of people wearing red poppies in the run-up to Armistice Day on November 11 seems to have been in decline in recent years.
And some volunteers say they are selling fewer than in the past.
In a survey of towns and cities around the United Kingdom, including locations that were badly bombed during World War II, The Daily Mail discovered that just a small number of customers displayed poppies and that establishments selling them were in poor supply.
Reasons given for their apparent slump in popularity vary from younger people shunning them to difficulties finding volunteers to sell them and even complaints about the new plastic-free poppies made solely out of paper, which were first introduced in 2023.
When poppies were a regular sight on the Western Front, growing in fields that had been shaken up by bombardment and combat, they became inextricably tied to the misery of World War I.
The flowers famously provided Canadian doctor John McCrae with inspiration for his poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, which he wrote whilst serving in Ypres in 1915.
A campaign for the poppy to be made a symbol of remembrance grew after the war concluded in 1918, and artificial poppies were first sold in 1921 in support of the Earl Haig Fund for ex-servicemen and the families of those who had died.
The British Legion, which became the Royal British Legion in 1971, founded a factory staffed by disabled ex-servicemen making poppies in 1922.
The annual Poppy appeal continues to be the RBL’s largest annual fundraising event, bringing in £51.4 million last year with 40,000 volunteers distributing 40 million poppies, according to the armed forces’ charity.
But that total is still down on pre-Covid levels – the record of £55 million set in 2018.
Sales declined by more than £8 million the next year, to hit £46.5 million in 2019, and fell even further during COVID and lockdowns in 2020 to £27.9 million.
While sales rebounded to £42.2 million in 2021, they seemed to plateau to £39.9 million in 2022 and £41.9 million in 2023 before last year’s uptick.
On Bideford’s pedestrian-only high street in North Devon, the Daily Mail saw barely five customers carrying poppies. Only a few stores were selling poppies, but several have Remembrance Day displays in their windows.
Ray Eyres, owner of Mill Street Butchers, which had a poppy box on his counter, said: ‘I’ve not sold many at all this year to be honest with you.
‘It’s got so bad I’ve started putting my own money in just so the collecting tin isn’t quite so empty. My regulars have all bought them, and I’ve encouraged customers to put their small change in, but that’s about it.
‘I haven’t seen many poppies around town either, I don’t know whether that’s because the weather has been so mild that people haven’t realised it’s November or if everybody just has too many other things to worry about. I hope there will be a sudden rush before the 11th.’
At the town’s Morrisons supermarket, former Royal Marine Captain Derek Sargent, 78, who organises collections for several neighbouring towns, said: ‘You don’t see a lot of people wearing poppies in Bideford, which is a shame.
‘We used to have a lot more collectors, but it’s a sign of the times. People who used to do it have died off and not been replaced.
‘The problem with organising Poppy Day is the closure of the British Legion branches means you lose that network of volunteers to do it, so they are relying on people with no background in the services.
‘I’ve been inundated with people who want to donate, but there’s not enough places to do it. The human element is really important. If you just have a table with poppies on it, you won’t collect a fraction of the money that you would with somebody like me there.’
Mr Sargent insisted that young people were still being taught about the importance of remembrance, with many of the 65 collection kits he distributes every year going to schools.
Torridge – the area surrounding Bideford – played a crucial part in World War II, and nearby beaches, which closely resembled those in Normandy, were used to test amphibious equipment for the D-Day landings.
The area also hosted thousands of American troops and welcomed evacuees from heavily bombed cities. An Honour Roll in the church of St. Mary has the names of 90 men who died during the war.
Only a small portion of shoppers were wearing poppies on Friday morning when a Daily Mail reporter visited the town centre of King’s Lynn, Norfolk.
Most of those sporting poppies were over retirement age, and nobody wearing one seemed to be under 35 years old, despite the town being known for its RAF connections and just 10 miles from RAF Marham, which is home to the UK’s F-35 fighters.
Two residents of King’s Lynn were killed and 13 were wounded during a Zeppelin bombing raid on January 19, 1915, in World War I, and another 57 civilians were killed and 41 were injured in 14 air raids during World War II.
Poppy sellers were on duty this week at tables set up in the town’s Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco stores – but only a tiny number of other shops and outlets had boxes of poppies and collecting tins or jars on their counters.
The only business selling poppies on the High Street seemed to be the Hairshare salon, which was selling them for the first time in more than ten years.
The salon’s manager, Emma Cruickshank, 44, said: ‘We used to have a person come in who would ask us if we wanted a box, and leave us one. They would then come back and pick up the money we collected, but that all stopped years ago.’
Junior stylist Lucy Jaggard, 20, said she arranged for a box of poppies to be supplied to the salon this year after customers last year kept asking where they could buy one.
She contacted the Royal British Legion’s head office, which led her to a local organiser who gave her a link so she could order one online for £4.50.
Lucy said, ‘It was a bit of a process to go through. We always join in the silence every year, and we thought we should sell poppies as well. Customers have been buying them when they leave, and we have got £27.50 so far. We will be sending all the money back to the Legion.’
Retired nurse Bridget Cornwell, 74, who was having her hair done, said she used to sell poppies door-to-door in the nearby villages of Ashwicken and Bawsey until RBL officials put a stop to the practice.
Retired plumber Bob Melville, 75, from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, who was sporting a poppy while out with his partner Sheila Bottesi, 82, said: ‘There are definitely less places selling them. I got mine at a supermarket this year, and it was the first time I made a donation by card.
‘Years ago, they used to push them a bit more, and you had sellers in the street. They were everywhere you looked, and it was great. We can’t forget the people who gave up their lives in wars.’
Kelly Thomas, the assistant manager at the Veterans at Ease charity shop in King’s Lynn, said she had been disappointed about only being given a box of plain paper poppies to sell, rather than a selection including more elaborate metal poppies and key rings.
Kelly said she had developed her own fundraising idea by having a ‘poppy tree’ in her shop, featuring crocheted poppies knitted by a group of women in Downham Market.
The east London borough of Newham, which lost more than 3,000 of its residents during World War Two, either as civilians killed in the Blitz or military personnel, had barely any poppy sellers on duty when the Daily Mail visited.
No poppies seemed to be on sale at Stratford station or in the nearby Stratford Shopping Centre, although staff at both places said volunteer sellers did visit on some other days.
One shopping centre staff member said: ‘The sellers have stopped coming so much in the last few years.’
The middle of the station had a poppy-bordered sign, while staff and commuters could be seen wearing poppies, despite them not being on sale, although there was an evangelist Christian stall and a Save the Children charity appeal outside the station.
A flower seller said: ‘It is mainly old people who wear poppies – younger people don’t tend to wear them now.’
The shopping centre boasted a memorial display paying tribute to Newham residents who fought and died in the war, with their photos and stories emblazoned on big signs, and a silhouette of a soldier, alongside handwritten messages from shoppers, thanking servicemen and women.
Staff said that a brass band was expected to perform at the facility during the weekend, to prepare for the day of commemorations on Remembrance Sunday.
But a flower seller at the centre, whose family have run a stall for 90 years, said he felt Remembrance Day efforts had massively declined in recent years.
‘I asked for a tin. I couldn’t get one. There used to be a man inside Sainsbury’s selling them, but he’s not there any more,’ he said.
‘I remember him, he was a big soldier bloke… You can’t buy poppies anywhere in London now.’
Another shopkeeper, who was sporting a poppy, said: ‘I had a couple come in and ask for a poppy wreath, and we had to say we haven’t got any.
‘I think there should be someone in every market selling them. My daughter had to go to North Weald to get me this one.’
While there was no shortage of people wearing a poppy in Stratford, there were far fewer in other places in Newham.
In Plaistow, at the heart of the borough, a walk up and down the high street revealed only one elderly man and one little boy wearing the symbol.
Few businesses in the area appeared to know where a poppy could be bought, although Plaistow Library had an array of Remembrance Day-related books, along with the In Flanders Fields poem mounted on the wall.
A young man working at the library said he had wanted to buy one himself, but had not been able to find one locally, although his workplace was waiting for a delivery.
Trevor Bruns, a local stallholder and long-time East End resident, said: ‘I’ve been a whelk seller for 17 years and I’ve never been able to buy a poppy here. I would if I could.’
Some are keeping up the grand old tradition. Poppy seller Liam Adam said he was doing brisk business at his stall in the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford.
Liam, who has been volunteering for the Poppy Appeal for three years, said: ‘We’ve taken, I reckon, a few hundred pounds this morning or maybe 60 poppies. One person gave £40, that’s a huge donation, and they only got one poppy.’
Yet poppies were few and far between in the Whitechapel area of Tower Hamlets in east London, where scarcely anyone on the high street was wearing one.
Nobody was selling them at one of the local stations, although a foodbank collection and a man was handing out English-language versions of the Quran.
A large Sainsbury’s store off the high street was suggested by the town hall and library staff as a likely ideal spot for poppy sellers.
However, there was no visible in-person presence during a visit; instead, it only showed two cardboard boxes of paper poppies and donation containers.
Even in the main transport hub of Liverpool Street, which sits on the perimeter of Tower Hamlets and the City of London, poppies were not common.
A picture taken from above of a mass of hundreds looking up at the departures board showed only five observable poppies sported on lapels.
This was in spite of the fact that there were six amiable, gregarious vendors positioned at two desks at either end of the train station.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail failed to identify poppy merchants in Leicester.
Grandmother Margaret Wise, 72, who has lived in the city all her life, told of her ‘shock’ and ‘disappointment’ that there was hardly anywhere to buy one.
She said: ‘It is a sorry reflection of how times have changed. At one time, you would see people walking around and proudly showing off a bright red poppy on their lapel, but I’ve not seen any now.’
The retired school dinner lady, shopping in the busy high street near the clock tower, added: ‘I would gladly have bought one, but I can’t see any poppy sellers anywhere. It’s important we remember our country’s traditional values, whatever our religious and political beliefs or ethnicity.’
At the train station, the concourse was bereft of any Royal British Legion poppy sellers.
An East Midlands Railway worker, pointing to a space outside the ticket office near the main entrance, said: ‘Last year we had a table set up for people selling poppies over there, but it’s not here this year.’
He said: ‘I don’t know why, but I presume there is no need for one… It’s a changing sign of the times. Maybe people in Leicester don’t want to wear poppies. You can’t force them to.’
A reporter strolling around the city – which has a population of about 400,000 – saw nobody wearing one.
At the Gourmet Coffee Bar outside the station, a very small box still almost full of poppies had been put on one corner of the counter.
A worker called Cameron, 23, said some travellers had been buying poppies, but not ‘that many.’
He said: ‘I’ve sold some, maybe a few dozen, and customers have been putting a few pound coins in the box or fiver notes.’
Cameron, a former Scout who lives on the outskirts of Leicester, said he had no idea if sales were up or down on last year as he was not working there last November, but he sensed the diverse city was ‘less supportive of British ways.’
Similarly, the Mail spotted very few individuals wearing poppies in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and was unable to locate a single poppy vendor.
Residents said they only ever saw occasional sellers in The Broadway shopping centre, and on Saturdays in the city’s Darley St Market.
Shopper Evelyn Morris, 62, said: ‘There are quite a few on Saturday, but that’s the only time you’ll see them.
‘There’s none in the week but at the weekend you’ll get collectors for the Royal British Legion or kids from the scouts and things like that.’
Poppy wearer Jim Broughton, 76, said: ‘It’s very sad but you hardly see any poppy sellers these days. In fact, it’s rare you see people wearing them. I haven’t seen any poppy sellers in the last few days.
‘I got mine from a volunteer selling in the shopping centre, and he said it was very quiet. I think you get the odd person also selling them in supermarkets.’
The city’s Centenary Square, train terminals, and even the area around the war monument were devoid of vendors.
The Bradford City War Memorial Gardens honour the sacrifice of Polish soldiers in World War II as well as the Bradford Pals during World War I.
Similar findings were reported by the Daily Mail in Blackburn, Lancashire, where there was a Royal British Legion kiosk in the mall, but few people were wearing poppies.
The volunteer seller, who did not want to give his name, said: ‘It’s a lot quieter than previous years. A lot of people just come and give money and don’t take a poppy.
‘A lot of it is contactless, so it’s hard to tell how much people are spending. I think a lot of it is down to the footfall in the town centre. There are less people coming in as a lot of the big shops have closed down.
‘It’s sad – maybe poppies have gone out of fashion, or people are worried about the waste.
‘But it’s a shame as it’s such a good cause.’
During the five minutes that the Daily Mail spoke with the volunteer, three individuals visited the stand.
Poppy wearer June Worthington, 58, said: ‘This is the only stall I have seen in the town centre. There used to be a lot more, such as in the main shopping street or by the railway station.
‘Now you have to go out of your way to find them. I’ve had mine for years, so I just donate online or give money if I do see a stall.’
A spokesperson for the Royal British Legion said: ‘The Royal British Legion has distributed 30 million poppies for this year’s Poppy Appeal, as we do every year.
‘We have more collectors supporting the Appeal than last year, with over 54,000 people generously donating their time across the nation.
‘Last week’s London Poppy Day beat all previous records with £1.478 million raised in a single day in the capital, a 14 per cent increase on last year.
‘We are grateful for every donation made and every poppy worn and encourage people to wear their poppies as a personal message of thanks to our Armed Forces community.’
Unfortunately, the UK has grown so divided that no one wants to wear a poppy anymore because they are afraid of being attacked.
I would gladly make an online donation, but I most definitely wouldn’t be spotted wearing a poppy in London, but then again, I would never forget the sacrifice our war heroes made for us.
Sadly, we are a very small minority in the UK, and British people won’t wear poppies in case there are negative reactions from other communities.
We are all being dumbed down, and even Christmas is on borrowed time, along with the Easter Bunny.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 