SIR - I write in response to your front page article of June 21 regarding the Mayor of Skipton and white poppies ('White poppies bid by Mayor rejected').

How very disappointing that people who misunderstand what they stand for are given credence.

As an ex-serving officer, I am deeply saddened that the Royal British Legion now accepts funding from Arms Manufacturers, and thereby undermines the “Never Again” message of the original red poppies.

Fortunately the white poppy explicitly commits to work for a world where conflicts can be resolved without violence, and with justice.

It also remembers all who were harmed by war, and not just servicemen.

The idea of the white poppy arose from the concerns of wives, mothers, sisters and lovers of men who died or were injured in World War I, and who in the early 1930s feared another conflict.

I wear both a red and a white poppy.

I served a country that I thought stood for freedom of speech and ideas and expression of them.

So please, let’s be less jingoistic, and let’s respect what our forebears fought for.

Lt Col (ret’d) Lois H Lodge L/RAMC, Raikeswood Drive, Skipton