08/11/2026
This Remembrance Sunday I want to share a personal remembrance.
My name is Jay Nightingale, and my grandfather is Danny Nightingale. If you live in the Washington area, you likely knew him. He and my grandmother, Sylvia, were together responsible for building the Poppy Appeal in Washington to what it is today.
They arranged the first Remembrance Sunday event and parade at the cenotaph in Washington Village, which has grown each year into the massive event it is today. In 2012, the year my grandad had to step down as coordinator of the poppy appeal due to health issues, I was so proud to be the one to play The Last Post at the Remembrance event in the Village.
I remember the Poppy Appeal and Remembrance very fondly. I grew up around veterans, including my grandad, who between them all had more stories than we had time.
Some of my best memories of us all as a family are of us sitting in my grandparent's living room in Concord during the dark nights, with the television on and a takeaway, putting together the poppies piece by piece. That's right - those plastic poppies didn't come pre-made... Every single box in Washington was put together piece by piece in our living room. The particularly neat ones were done by little me of course - I took great pride in making sure that little plastic centres were spun the right way up, and the leaf had to be pointing to the 11 o'clock or it wasn't fit to be worn. We're still finding stray poppy pieces in corners and at the bottom of boxes and bags years later.
I have a feeling that some of this may surprise or even shock some people reading this. I've been seeing Remembrance Sunday posts from other Green Party or broadly just from left-wing pages, and overwhelmingly their comments have been absolutely flooded by far right accounts spewing the most horrific abuse and overall claiming that no-one on the political left could ever support veterans or Remembrance.
This concept is absolutely absurd to me, because my experiences growing up around veterans, around my grandparents, hearing stories about their experiences, and being surrounded by their values and humour and outlook - all of that is EXACTLY the upbringing that made so-called 'left-wing' values as natural to me as they are.
Stories about strength in community and help provided and resources shared freely and without judgement to those in need, and seeing this in action.
Stories of my family's house being open to every soldier who had nowhere else to go on Christmas, and how the coming together of so many different cultures and traditions was a wonderful and enlightening experience when it was welcomed and celebrated rather than feared or rejected.
Stories of people who had seen the very worst of humanity and who as a result of that understood better than anyone the importance of peace. The importance of a community which is strengthened by our differences rather than divided by them.
People who knew from experience that the strength of a community is not measured by how much material wealth it has or how loudly it proclaims its patriotism through words rather than deeds.
My grandparents taught me that Remembrance isn't about glorifying war. It isn't about nationalism or flags. It is about remembering the real people who gave their futures with the hope that the next generations could do it better. It is for us to remember what those before us had to go through and vowing to make a world where no-one has to go through what they did ever again.
And that, to me, is fundamentally a progressive, 'left wing' value.
You cannot spend as much time as I did listening to the experiences of veterans, understanding the human cost of conflict and appreciating the sacrifices made by ordinary people, without developing a profound belief in peace, compassion, and solidarity.
I don't believe that remembering those who served means we have to blindly support every war our government involves us in - past or present. We can honour those who served while challenging the circumstances that sent them to war. We can wear a poppy and campaign for peace. These things are not contradictory.
And I certainly don't believe that the far right gets to claim ownership of remembrance, patriotism, community or respect for veterans - especially not when they do so at the same time as they push the very same fascist ideologies so many died to prevent the rise of in our country. None of those things belong to one political ideology. They belong to all of us who are human.
I think about my grandad and grandmother, about all those evenings putting poppies together, and about all the stories I heard growing up.
I think about how so much of who I am today was shaped by those experiences, and how much of what I believe politically comes directly from the people who taught me those values in the first place.
So this Remembrance Sunday, I will remember my grandad. I will remember the countless hours he and my family gave to their community. The people they helped. The legacy they built.
I will remember the veterans who shared their stories with me, those who are still with us and those who are no longer here.
And I will remember that the ultimate purpose of Remembrance should be to learn from the past, care for one another in the present, and work towards a future where fewer families have to experience the pain of losing someone to war or genocide.
Lest we forget. ❤️
