Legion adds edge to poppy appeal

Nick Cohen on the drive to promote remembrance

LIEUTENANT Colonel RD "Bobby" Hanscomb, OBE, assistant secretary of the Royal British Legion, is not a man who lets hints of nervousness creep into his voice. But as he contemplated the task of persuading the country to stand silent for two minutes on 11 November - Armistice Day - he did wonder whether the veterans' group had bitten off more than it can chew.

"It's a leap in the dark," he said. "We could end up with egg on our faces. But if we persuade some people to stop and think, then we won't have failed."

He should certainly achieve that much. The Legion's campaign to revive the Armistice Day silence at 11am next Saturday is being backed by one of the most powerful marketing campaigns ever seen from a charity.

Brian Basham, a formidably effective public relations specialist, who worked for British Airways when it was accused of fighting a "dirty tricks" campaign against Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic, is an adviser. The Sun has adopted the Legion's cause and daily seeks to persuade businesses, its readers and public authorities to support the silence. A radio studio has been fitted in the basement of the Legion's headquarters to provide interviewees to local stations. And the Legion has imitated the National Lottery by issuing a scratchcard game to encourage more donations, and followed the tactics of Comic Relief by producing huge plastic poppies to fit on to car grilles.

But last week the dream of a publicity coup began to turn sour as the Legion discovered that in the world of public relations it is often unclear who is the servant and who the master.

The Legion itself has been a model of restraint. It has been acutely conscious that it must not be seen to bully the public into falling silent at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month - recalling the moment that the First World War ended in 1918. The public silence was observed between the wars, when traffic would come to a halt in the streets, but it was dropped at the outbreak of the Second World War. After 1945 it was not reinstated, and the commemorations were transferred to Remembrance Sunday.

"We want our event on Armistice Day to be voluntary," said Col Hanscomb, who sees Saturday's silence as a chance for the millions who won't be going to remembrance services next Sunday. "We are giving people the opportunity to have a few minutes of quiet contemplation."

Quiet contemplation and the modern media, however, do not mix, and the increasingly shrill tone of the press coverage has alienated potential allies. The Post Office was furious after the Sunday Express and the Sun condemned it for "banning" the sale of Poppy Appeal scratchcards in main post offices.

"It's all totally mad," said a Post Office spokesman. "The Legion never asked us to stock scratchcards and the papers knew that. We would have said no in any case. We don't want to turn post offices into betting shops." The Post Office will not be observing Saturday's silence.

Even the Legion became a target when it adopted too restrained a line for the Sun's taste. As part of his attempts to make sure that the two- minute silence had as wide an appeal as possible, David France, the Legion's publicity consultant, had emphasised that the charity was "keen to reject jingoism and the glorification of victory". To ensure that nobody thought war was being celebrated, members were told not to wear medals on parade on Saturday.

The "Poppy chiefs", the Sun thundered, were guilty of a "barmy decision to ban war heroes from wearing medals". Mr French was forced to eat humble pie and retracted his statement. "I would be very grateful to announce through the Sun that I withdraw it unreservedly, and to apologise for any upset or offence it caused," he said.

Hundreds of organisations including NatWest, Lloyds and most large building societies have said that they will close down services for two minutes on Saturday. But the BBC and ITV will not interrupt programmes, because the Government has not designated the silence as an official event.

For all the fuss of the past week, Col Hanscomb has no doubts that the campaign for a two-minute silence is necessary. "People have to understand that there is a continuing need for help," he said. "There are about 500,000 minutes in a year and we're only asking for two."

Neal Ascherson, page 20