Have you bought your poppy? And will you? It's Anzac day on Monday, which holds different meaning for all of us, I imagine.

For me, I remember my great grandfather who fought on the western front. I've spoken about him before - Albert Victor Dixon. He was a stretcher-bearer on the front line. I have his military records which make for tough reading I have to say.

In one incident he was buried, completely, by a shell that landed near him and he had to be dug out of the ground. He suffered shell-shock, horrific shell-shock, and was put on a train to a hospital for a few days, and then sent back to the frontline again.

It's hard to imagine, isn't it. What he must have seen and endured.

And so for me, on Anzac day, I remember my great grandfather, and those who fought and fell alongside him.

I'll wear a poppy, and my little boy will too, and we'll go to an Anzac service, and pop into our local RSA as well.

And so it was with interest that I read about the national centre for peace and conflict studies in Otago, who are selling white poppies, because they believe red poppies are militaristic.

The suggestion is that the red poppy symbolises the condoning and exacerbating of violence and war, and I think, well, I think the academics might be over-thinking things a little at Otago university.

The centre says that a white poppy better symbolises the purpose of remembrance -- and that we should remember the war in order to ensure it will never happen again.

And it also says that when soldiers are portrayed in a heroic and honourable way, it makes it harder to get rid of militaries and arms industries.

Wearing a white poppy, I don't think, will stop the mass production of military equipment all over the world.

It won't stop the Russians, it won't stop the Chinese, it won't stop the mass production of weaponry.

There is, of course, a story behind the red poppy too.

I studied it at school. When we learnt about the Flanders poppy and how it was the first to flower amid the carnage of the battlefields in France and Belgium.

And so the red poppy, to me, is a symbol of calm. And of peace. And of remembrance. And a chance to remember those who fought in the worst conditions imaginable. A moment to remember my great grandfather, Albert Victor Dixon.

It also reminds me that the freedoms we enjoy today are because of what hundreds of thousands of people fought for, and sacrificed last century.