Tuesday 17 February 2026.
M, the woollen poppy lady, saw me after Mass today and said hello. She’d had to sit with a cushion for her bad back. It was the result of an expensive massage she’d had on holiday, which I suggested had undone the tension that had previously held her together.
I call her the poppy lady because it was in her house that all the remembrance day poppies, all hand knitted, were stored, ready to be displayed around the church. They looked lovely on that Sunday morning.
I like chatting to M. She talks to me as if she’s known me for years and her accent, and cheerful manner, remind me of home.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” she said, in a very slight Scouse twang.
“Neither are you I replied”, with my northern lilt.
M told me she had lived all over the place.
After her husband graduated from Liverpool University, she moved where he’d been able to find work. First in Great Yarmouth, then Grimsby, and then Kent. Always by the sea.
That was 44 years ago. And a lot of poppies later.