Poppy that says, never forget . . .

PERHAPS the most wonderful gift I had for my 70th was a big ceramic poppy, displayed in a glass case.

My thoughtful daughter Kitty obtained it, clubbing together with her brother and their partners to buy the magnificent souvenir of the 2014 art installation Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red at the Tower of London.

My poppy is one of the 888,246 ‘planted’ in the moat in a huge swathe of red, drawing millions of visitors who stood awestruck, meditating on the fatalities of World War I.

Kitty knew I would love it — and indeed six days later my husband and I went on a coach trip with the War Poets Association, for our third tour of the battlefields of Northern France.

One hundred years ago my grandfather William, a working-class Liverpool lad who joined up as a private in the Lancashire Fusiliers, endured the unimaginable horror of the Somme trenches, going over the top into German machine-gun fire of 500 rounds a minute.

Each time I return to the battlefields (we shall go again in 2018) I give silent thanks for the miracle of his long, happy life and at the same time join collective mourning for those (from all nations, including Germany) who gave their lives.

At the gigantic monument to the missing (72,246 names) at Thiepval, we attended an open-air service organised by the Royal British Legion, during which two pupils from a Somerset school ascended the steps to lay a wreath.

How dignified they and their schoolmates were, yet how hard it must be for such young minds to take in what happened. Even we adults felt sometimes overwhelmed by the terrible details, as we read war poetry aloud at the sites of carnage and reflected on why we had come.

I could write much more about the whole experience and why it mattered so much to me. Suffice to say now that my beautiful ceramic poppy (tipped with soil from the Tower) watches over me as I write, to remind me never to forget.

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or e-mail bel.mooney@dailymail.co. uk. A pseudonym will be used if you wish. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.