DURING Remembrance Day once again the BBC was inundated with complaints about people appearing on current affairs and chat shows without wearing a red poppy.

This particular criticism increases yearly and is developing unpleasant and oppressive overtones, carrying with it an assumption that those without a poppy don’t care or show respect.

This not a healthy attitude, everyone should be free to remember in a way that they feel comfortable with, mourning and the attendant trauma is a private matter. These public displays of sadness with a slightly authoritarian edge have been increasingly encouraged by the media since the death of Princess Diana.

Of course we’re all proud of those who served and often paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country but remembrance is sometimes complicated.

My father, who was on the beach at Dunkirk, only spoke to me once about his experience and when he did I could tell that he found it painful. His apparent reticence was not that he didn’t care but rather that he cared too much.

VJ Connor, Bishop Auckland.