IT’S RPD time again throughout the land, I’m afraid. Time for the annual Red Poppy Display by our public figures. Politicians in shoals do it, telly stars in comedy roles do it, no doubt internet trolls do it. So, let’s all do it – in hospitals, offices, schools, buses and trains. Providing, of course, we’ve exercised our brains.

My father, born 1895 and a Great War survivor, spent the rest of his life not buying the "heroic sacrifice" story, and not buying a propaganda poppy to relieve what he saw as a Government responsibility. Now his aged son has seen remembrance metamorphose into something that’s hard to find a name for.

Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory do indeed look backwards, but for me they’re nostalgia fortissimo, not Remembrance with capital R. At next Sunday’s Cenotaph ceremony organised by the UK department of Culture, Media & Sport, the Queen will not be laying a wreath, as we’ve heard, but up to 10,000 designated veterans of various wars and conflicts will take part in the Royal British Legion march-past.

From a long, list of those on parade, a few really did give me something to think about – for instance, the British

Nuclear Test Association, the National Service Alliance, the Coronation Intake at Sandhurst, Help for Heroes, and

the Royal Yachtsmen Association.

Jack Newbigging,

13 Heatherstane Bank, Irvine.