It began, as always, in the Swan Street car park and finished just after 11 at the other end of the town centre.

But in between Petersfield learned about the best and worst of humanity as hundreds gathered on The Square and the High Street for its annual Remembrance service.

Every service is important, but this year’s had special resonance given it’s been 80 years since VE Day and VJ Day and the end of the Second World War.

So the backdrop was even more special than usual, with the St Peter’s porch being covered in thousands of knitted and crocheted poppies following a year-long appeal.

The Rev Will Hughes talked heavily about the Petersfield Poppy Appeal and how organisers kept upping targets as poppies flooded in from near and afar.

Some took hours to knit just one, while others churned out several a day, but every one produced had its place.

Rev Hughes said: “Every poppy is different, and each poppy is unique.

“Last week someone came into the church and looked around at the 17,000 poppies, and said she found three of her own. How on earth did she do that?”

Rev Hughes said it’s because she knew what to look for, the intimacy and uniqueness of the poppy, before comparing them all to those who died in conflicts, who were all unique and different in their own ways.

He also told them the 17,000 was less than the British death count on the first day of The Somme.

The service included a reading by David Lodrick MBE, president of the Petersfield branch of the RLB, and prayers by town mayor, Cllr Chris Paige, before proceedings moved to the war memorial for the sounding of the Last Post, laying of wreaths, and the Roll of Honour.