Growing support for owner of ‘Poppy Truck’

MORE THAN 1,000 people have signed an online petition backing the owner of the ‘Poppy Truck’, who has been threatened with legal action by the Royal British Legion.

The RBL has threatened Christine Langham with legal action, unless she relinquishes her trademark.

She has been using her truck decorated with images of First World War, Second World War and wild poppies to help raise money for the Legion,

It comes as an ex soldier, who was also threatened with action after painting his van on similar lines, urged Mrs Langham to fight on. Steve Brown, who was in the Royal Army Medical Corps for 30 years, said he was approached by a member of the RBL at a show, who “wasn’t happy and threatened me”.

Mr Brown, who now takes people on battlefield tours, told him to “go ahead” but has not heard anything since. He added: “I know what this lady does and every penny goes to the Legion and some of that money goes to taking the old guys to the battlefields.

Mr Brown said the longer the RBL continued to put pressure on Mrs Langham, the more it would damage their reputation. He would no longer donate to the charity. He added: “I think she will get hundreds of thousands of people supporting her – certainly the backing of every English truck and coachdriver.”

A petition on change.org had over 1,000 signatures in 12 hours.

The RBL said on Monday that with regards to charitable activities the word poppy “is exclusively associated with them as a charity supporting the Armed Forces” and they didn’t want to the public to be “misled”.