DAVID HORSMAN

THE EX-NAVY DIVER HAS BEEN A POPPY APPEAL ORGANISER FOR 15 YEARS

 “When I left the Navy I joined my local Legion club in Nottingham, for the social life really, just to keep the ex-Service comradeship going. I wasn’t involved in the Poppy Appeal at all – in fact, I didn’t really understand what the Legion did.

That came much later, after I’d become a Legion beneficiary myself. I became quite ill as a result of my work as a diver with the Royal Navy – I got what we call ‘the bends’ – and the Legion helped me out. It was just little things: getting a cleaner out to my house, helping with the garden... but it made me realise what the organisation does and I started to help with the Poppy Appeal as a way of giving something back. “When I moved to the Lake District, I joined the Kendal Branch and that’s when I got involved with the fundraising. Our County Secretary, Tony, is ex-Navy, too, so we’d see each other at Royal Naval Association meetings and he asked me to help. He was the Branch’s Poppy Appeal Organiser and I was his assistant, I suppose. Around 15 years ago, he asked me to take over and run it, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I find the operation runs more smoothly if it’s done all year round, not in a frantic push as October approaches."

I have a team of four or five. One of them is an ex-Army Warrant Officer and I’d be struggling without him. He comes round every week and tackles little jobs that need doing: he’ll take last year’s tags off the collecting tins, or check the blue cardboard boxes to see which ones are worn out and need replacing. “Another ex-Army man, Dennis, will stand outside Marks & Spencer collecting for 10 days, in all weathers, by himself. He does an incredible job: last year, single-handedly, he raised about £5,000. That’s 20 per cent of the total Poppy Appeal for our Branch, helping us reach £25,000 – our biggest ever amount. He’s a good example of how the organiser needs to keep thinking of new ways to grow. “Dennis’s collection at Marks & Spencer came about when I bumped into the store’s manager, who’s also an ex-Army fellow, and he said he’d be happy for Dennis to stand outside their store – when he did, he began to take in astronomical sums. He’ll start the day with 15 to 20 tins and end it with each one full to the brim. “In terms of volunteers, every bit of help is gratefully received. Want a collecting tin for a few hours? Great. Four hours helping to fill boxes of poppies? Even better. The fortnight prior to Remembrance Sunday is when my smoothly running operation goes into more hectic overdrive, but my late father came up with something invaluable, what we call ‘static’ boxes. They’re huge things, made out of copper reels, and he turned them into standalone fittings: the collection tin slots into the unit, with Poppies scattered around it. We’ll distribute seven of these units, and people will simply come up, drop their money in and take their poppy, and I don’t need to organise anyone to look after them, I just tour around every other day emptying the tins. They’ll bring in more than £1,000 each. “When I took over, our local contribution was less than £10,000 – I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t top £25,000 this time around. But I couldn’t do it without my team: helping me behind the scenes, standing out in all weathers, making the Poppy Appeal the huge success it is, and above all helping the Legion to do the exceptional work it does all year round.”

Reproduced from the August 2014 Issue of The Royal British Legion Magazine - click to select "Page Turner" version of magazine and go to page 48.