A London journalist reads about Harry and Meghan’s return to Britain and reflects on the Invictus Games coming to Birmingham, the Poppy Appeal and what service means to the country
Back In Time For The Poppies
The London Prat has a warm, dry piece on Harry and Meghan’s return to Britain and their charity visits in Nottingham, featuring a community recording studio, a teenager singing about peer pressure, a ninety-year-old woman with a framed photograph, a unicorn balloon and a full public analysis of a belt. The piece pokes fun at the circus of royal coverage while being kind to the young people at the heart of the visit.
The family’s return comes at an interesting time of year. In a few weeks, the country will mark Remembrance Sunday, and poppies are already appearing on coats, lapels and lampposts. Whatever anyone thinks of the Duke of Sussex’s relationship with his family or with the press, his connection to the armed forces is one part of his public life that commands broad respect. It seems a good moment to think about service, and about how Britain honours it.
The Soldier Prince
Prince Harry served in the British Army for ten years, including two tours of Afghanistan. After leaving, he founded the Invictus Games, an international sporting event for wounded, injured and sick service personnel and veterans, first held in London in 2014. The games have since been held around the world and have become one of the most visible celebrations of military recovery and resilience. In 2027, they come back to Britain, to Birmingham, as set out by the Invictus Games Foundation’s Birmingham 2027 page.
That homecoming matters. Birmingham will host competitors from many nations, and British audiences will see veterans who have lost limbs, suffered brain injuries or battled serious mental illness competing in front of their families. It is the kind of event that reminds a country what its servicemen and women have given, and what many of them continue to carry long after they leave uniform.
The Poppy Appeal
Every autumn, the Royal British Legion runs the Poppy Appeal, raising money to support the armed forces community, including veterans and their families. Local councils, parish councils, branches and volunteers across the country take part, and village notice boards fill up with appeal dates and collection rotas, like the parish council notice on the 2026 Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal. The red paper poppy, inspired by the poppies that grew on the battlefields of the First World War, has become one of the most recognizable symbols of British remembrance.
There is something quietly patriotic about the poppy that is very different from loud nationalism. It is not about victory. It is about loss, gratitude and care for the living. Wearing a poppy does not say that Britain is better than anywhere else. It says that people served and suffered, and that we have not forgotten them.
Remembrance And Royals
The royal family plays a central role in national remembrance. The monarch traditionally leads the nation at the Cenotaph on Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday, laying a wreath alongside senior members of the family, political leaders and representatives of the armed forces and veterans’ organizations. It is one of the few occasions in the national calendar when the country falls genuinely silent, and the two minutes at eleven o’clock remain one of the most powerful moments in British public life.
Questions about which members of the family attend which ceremonies, and in what role, will doubtless be asked again this year, given the Sussexes’ presence in the country. I would gently suggest that Remembrance is not the moment for those arguments. It belongs to the fallen, to veterans and to their families, not to the royal soap opera.
Service Beyond Uniform
The Prat’s Nottingham piece is, in its way, also about service. The young people in the recording studio are being supported by community workers and volunteers who will never be photographed by the royal press. Britain runs on that kind of service: the youth worker, the carer, the volunteer, the lollipop man, the Poppy Appeal collector standing outside a supermarket in the drizzle. Patriotism, at its best, means recognizing them too.
A Collector In Holloway
Every year, outside supermarkets and stations up and down Holloway Road, collectors appear with trays of poppies, some of them veterans with medals on their coats. People stop, drop coins, take poppies and say thank you. Every so often a teenager asks what a medal is for, listens to the answer for longer than anybody expected, and walks off with a poppy pinned on and a story to tell at home. That small exchange is remembrance working exactly as it should. You can find more of my writing on Britain and British life on my author page.
Before The Silence
Whatever the Duke and Duchess do in the coming weeks, the most important British story of November will not be about them. It will be about the silence at eleven o’clock, the wreaths at the Cenotaph and the names read out in villages and towns across the country. The Duke, of all people, understands that. His Invictus Games exist because he saw what war does to the people who fight it. If his return to Britain helps more people pay attention to veterans, it will have been worth every barrier, every belt and every unicorn balloon.