WAR VETERANS have reacted with disgust after seven Poppy Appeal boxes stuffed with cash were snatched by thieves.

Five were stolen from shop counters and two were even taken from inside a town centre church in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

Ex-servicemen were close to tears after hearing the news and found it difficult to even comment on the matter.

It comes as another blow after graffiti was scrawled on a Royal British Legion (RBL) clubhouse in Queensmead Road, Loudwater, before Remembrance Sunday.

Monty Seymour, president of the High Wycombe RBL, said: "These people must be the lowest of the low. They have no feeling for fellow men. They can't realise they wouldn't be here today but for the sacrifice these people have made and soldiers are still making today."

Mr Seymour, 92, who fought in Burma, added: "I lost a lot of school friends in the war. You just didn't know if you were going to make it back.

"There was so much death. We would be searching through the rubble for bodies and covering them up with sheets.

"War is a terrible thing. You never want to experience it."

The boxes contained around £360 and were stolen from: The Stationery Box, White Hart Street; Childs Toy and Party Shop, Desborough Road; and Currys.digital in High Street.

Two boxes, meanwhile, were snatched from a Woolworths counter in the High Street and two others were grabbed from All Saints Church, Castle Street.

The money was intended for the High Wycombe RBL branch in St Mary's Street, to help ex-servicemen and their families with medical expenses and travel costs to visit the war graves of families and friends abroad.

Pearl Lewis, High Wycombe RBL club secretary, said: "I think people are losing respect for the older generation who fought for them. This is our only public fundraising event in the whole year and it is the most we have ever lost since launching the Poppy Appeal."

Two of the shops were targeted on Saturday October 28, one on Sunday November 5, one on Monday this week, and one on Tuesday. Currys was targeted on Sunday afternoon when a man and a woman worked in partnership to snatch an appeal box.

The woman distracted the cashier away from the till by asking her to look at a phone before the man cut the cable which was keeping the box attached to the counter.

Keith Armstrong, manager, said: "One of my staff saw the man cut through the cable that holds down the poppy box.

"She told him to stop but he grabbed it and ran. People had put in quite generously because people believe in this. It is non-political and for people who gave the ultimate."

The Stationery Box had a collection stolen on October 28 but survived an attempted theft around 3pm on Tuesday.

A supervisor, who did not wish to be named, said: "I was standing by the window when this guy ran in and grabbed it by the till.

"I grabbed him as he went out the shop door. He dropped it and I told him to go away."

He added: "People put a lot of money into poppies. That is probably why they go missing. Some you can understand their reasons but it still should not happen."

Korean war veteran Mike Morris, 74, from High Wycombe said: "I find it so disrespectful that it is actually quite hard for me to talk about it.

"To think people are stealing money that goes to help injured people from the wars. Words fail me. It's absolutely diabolical."

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