LAST month people all over the country donned poppies for Remembrance Sunday, while veterans and dignitaries laid thousands of wreaths at war memorials. But what happens to them once the ceremonies are over?
In Chelmsford, Simon Moston gathers the iconic garlands up – along with surplus individual poppies from friends – before driving them 210 miles across the Channel where he lays them on the graves of fallen soldiers at the Somme battlefield.
The chartered surveyor, who has been acting as a Somme tour guide for friends and family for more than a decade, began taking wreaths after seeing so many discarded.
"I have been acting as a bit of a tour guide for people I know for about 11 years now, and I go over there quite regularly. I'm just really interested in it," said the 48-year-old, who is planning his next journey in May.
"I used to see people just throwing their poppies away after Remembrance Sunday, and I said to a few people at work 'I'm going over there soon, I'll take them and put them on some of the graves'. Then they started bringing poppies from their friends, and it just grew.
"People are humbled to know their poppy has been taken over to the Somme and is on one of the graves there. After I had been doing that for a while, my father-in-law Alan Arnot, who was Mayor of Chelmsford at the time, asked if I could take the Chelmsford wreaths from the war memorial over to the Somme as well."
As well as having a historical interest in the war, the father-of-two has a personal interest as his grandfather fought there.
"My grandfather, Ernest Byard, was in the Somme. He was in the Royal Field Artillery and was one of the few people who survived," said Simon, of Quilp Drive. "He actually turned 21 on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Somme. Unfortunately all his records, like so many who saw action in the First World War, have been lost as a German bombing during the Second World War caused a fire in the records office.
"For a guide, it's so frustrating that I don't know exactly where he was, but he always used to joke that it was an interesting way to spend his 21st birthday, so I know that of all the battlefields in the First World War, he was at the Somme, so I know at some point when I am there I will be re-tracing his footsteps."
Luckily for Mr Moston, his wife Chiquita and daughters Samara, 16, and Cerys, 15, share his enthusiasm for history, often laying the wreaths alongside him.
"We always go over for at least a week for our family holidays," said Mr Moston. "Luckily my daughters still show an interest in it, so while I do guiding, they do their holiday stuff, and we all lay wreaths together.
"I haven't been able to get over there as much as I would like recently, so I have a bit of a backlog of wreaths at home, but I will take them all over eventually.
"We like to be able to take wreaths from youth groups and put them on the graves of younger soldiers, or with wreaths for other conflicts I will take them to the national cenotaph.
"I will keep doing this until I drop. This isn't a hobby, it's a passion, and it's different."
To donate your poppies or wreaths, call the newsdesk on 01245 602721 or e-mail Newsdesk@essexchronicle.co.uk
