Flag

[poliphilo]

How do you decently dispose of an old flag- a national flag, I mean?  I found one in the attic that had been well nibbled by mice and I could have put it in the dustbin- but that seemed disrespectful- so I opted for the bonfire- where it smouldered and stank. 

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

In the United States, you give it to the Boy Scouts, the fire department, or the police department, who hang onto them until they've got enough to make it worthwhile and they do a flag-burning ceremony every once in a while.

I wouldn't be surprised if British scouts, police, and firefighters did similar things.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would be surprised if they did. We don't have quite the same attitude to flags here in the UK as you do in the US. Unless they're regimental colours, in which case they seem to be left to hang in a cathedral until they fall to bits.

One other thing that we do differently is that if there are lots of flag poles in a place, all the flags will be different, perhaps the Union Jack and Welsh, Scottish and Irish flags. Often we'll even fly a selection of European flags. In the US in that situation, you seem to always get multiple stars and stripes.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You do have a flag code which is pretty much the same as ours. And while our CIVILIAN obsession with symbols of our country is nearly unique in "free countries", I would be shocked if your military is significantly different than ours in those attitudes.

Even though Baden-Powell formed your Scouting as a vaguely-paramilitary organization (uniforms, ranks, oaths, and so forth), the BSA maintains a much more vaguely-paramilitary feel. And our police departments were historically formed on a more paramilitary model (and we're not unique in that -- the Irish Garda and the Italian Carabinieri are two other European examples), while most Commonwealth countries have Peelian-model police.

So, yes, I definitely see your point, and Googling, I find hundreds of BSA flag ceremonies, and no British ones.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

I was always taught in the Girl Guides that burning was the only proper way.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. We are, after all, the people that put the national flag on our underpants

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So I did the right thing.

God save the Queen!

(and her fascist regime)

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Erm, I am not a police history expert, but the Gardaí were founded as an unarmed force in the 1920s, and although there are of course firearms squads just as there are in UK police forces, I find it hard to match being unarmed with the adjective 'paramilitary'.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

You could have listed it on eBay as "vintage". ;)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

In my youth I was a Girl Guide and my father and brother were heavily involved in scouting in the 1960s, so I suspected that if I hadn't ever heard of a Scout flag ceremony, they probably didn't exist. You're absolutely right that our military would have similar views on flags to the US military, but our police, not so much.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Okay; I presume I'm thinking of some other country that has a police force of a similar name. Thank you for the correction.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Too late now.

My parents used to have a boat and I think the flags (because there were two of them) were left over from that. I'm going to take the second, which seems undamaged, to a charity shop.