Should we respect the right of those who choose not to wear a poppy?

SARAH VINE complains that poppies have been worn for weeks before Remembrance Sunday (Mail). From the 20th century to the present date, only one year has passed without a member of our Armed Forces being killed in action — 1968. Poppies are on sale only during the three weeks leading to November 11. I get one as soon as possible and wear it with pride. Hundreds of thousands of service personnel have died so that Ms Vine has the freedom to express her opinion.

P. WARD, ex-Royal Navy, Lyme Regis, Dorset.

THE poppy-wearing season begins when TV presenters have theirs on display. Some people are vilifying ITV newsreader Charlene White for the heinous crime of choosing not to wear one. I found it more objectionable that some celebrities wore poppies on ghastly Halloween jumpers. A poppy is a traditional reminder of everyone who has been affected by war, while

Halloween is a pointless American celebration. We should only start wearing a poppy from November 1. D. P. MOORE, Thornton Heath, S. London. THE red poppies that grew in Flanders fields remind us of a horror that could return. They are a symbol of the sorrow we feel about war, of those lost in the battle for freedom and a symbol of our wish for peace.

Mrs BERYL SANDERS, Scunthorpe, Lincs. WHAT prompted people to adopt the white poppy when the red poppy is a symbol of remembrance and thus peace? Someone always wants to change an established convention to suit their own ends. The red poppy is a fitting memorial not to war, but to all who died as a result of conflict.

DAVID SHELTON, Worthing, W. Sussex. WHAT an amazing letter written by a former soldier who had experienced the horrors of war and wears a white poppy. I am wearing a red poppy to remember the heroes who died for us in the world wars and a white poppy to ask our country to put people in war zones above making money from defence contracts.

BILL TAYLOR, Brighton. IF THOSE who want to promote the white poppy picked a different day than Remembrance Sunday, more people might take notice of what they stand for.

LIN CANNON, Hornchurch, Essex. I’M SADDENED that Stoke City player James McClean refuses to wear the poppy. He should study his Irish history more closely: 200,000 Irishmen fought in World War I and 120,000 in World War II, many of them losing their lives in the pursuit of freedom for the British Isles and Ireland. My father was a proud Irishman who spent three-and-a-half years in a Japanese PoW camp. He wore the poppy with pride.

CEC LOWRY, Stockport, Gtr Manchester.