Did Morrisons force an 89 year old veteran to collect poppies outside?
Rumours are spreading that popular UK supermarket Morrisons forced an elderly Royal British Legion poppy collector outside a store in Taunton.
The message asserts the veteran informed a customer he was forced outside into the cold as there was no room inside due to promotional materials by Morrisons taking up the store floor. The message also claims to detail a verbal exchange between the customer and store manager.
Whilst the message appears to be [loosely] based on a real event, it contains more false information that genuine information, and excludes important facts to make the incident appear much worse than it actually was, as we discuss further below.
It seems like every year during the weeks before Remembrance Sunday that some supermarket or shop chain falls foul of the social media bandwagon regarding poppy collecting. Isolated events regarding the treatment of poppy collectors are often twisted and given the “witch-hunt makeover” and used as a catalyst to some attempted national boycott. It’s essentially an October tradition, only not one we should really be that proud of.
Tesco’s, Sainsburys, Ladbrokes, Marks and Spencers, Poundland, Body Shop, Asda and Lidl are but a few chains that have had anti-poppy rumours spread across social media websites, and in nearly all cases turned out to be completely false, misleading or isolated incidents that could have perhaps been avoided with better staff training. However in none of the cases did any of those stores claim to not support the sale of poppies, despite what their respective rumours asserted.
In this latest case involving Morrisons at Taunton, it seems that the message above omits important facts. According to a statement by Morrisons AND a later statement by the RBL themselves, the Royal British Legion collectors were offered space either outside or inside the store next to the checkout. The collectors opted to use the outside space because, according to the RBL statement, it offered a “higher footfall”. Morrisons have also claimed that the elderly veteran in question was not there at this point and joined in the collection effort later in the day.
Of course these are all facts omitted by the penned letter spreading across Facebook and Twitter, since they do not fit in all too well with the sentiment of its message. Read both statements below.
Statement from Morrisons –
Statement from the RBL –
Addtionally Morrison’s have claimed on their Facebook page –
Morrison’s have since issued an apology to the veteran for the mix up, claiming they were unaware that the collector had changed to an elderly man.
Of course these statements will unlikely do anything to deter the slew of angry comments and intentions to boycott the store. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are the ideal conduit for such misplaced anger, as the social media teams of almost every national chain in the world could tell you at one point or another.
Poppy collecting is an important part of our culture as it lets people commemorate those that have fallen whilst fighting for our nation’s freedom whilst providing support for those veterans that really need it.
However, misleading or false hate-filled messages spreading across the Internet is not really an effective way of commemorating anything. Always do your research first and be especially wary of spreading rumours that only show one side of a very passionate argument.
