TOTTON, you made my arms ache. You really did.

Such was your generosity as I stood collecting for The Poppy Appeal on one of your street corners that the cord from the moneybox left a deep groove in my wrist.

Even if I had been allowed to shake it (which you're not), I couldn't have.

It was too heavy and full.

I've always suspected the nation has a deep affection for its service personnel.

Yesterday I saw the proof.

"I was in Southampton during the war," explained one elderly lady, producing her purse from her handbag and rummaging inside.

"I remember the suffering. I don't think a lot of people today realise just how very hard it was, especially for those boys when they were away."

True many of us today haven't experienced the horrors of the Second World War.

But it doesn't mean Britain doesn't care about those who've taken part in more recent conflicts, such as the Gulf and the Falklands.

Some simply tipped in money and then strode on without collecting their poppy.

When a young mother, with three children gambolling around her heels, was asked if she came from a service family, she answered: "No, but it's important."

Another said she wasn't going to wear her poppy: "But I've done my bit now."

An Italian woman, a toddler called Poppy (naturally), a former member of the 17 Port and Maritime Regiment who has now become a social worker - some even went to the bank especially so they could purchase the symbol of British remembrance.

"Look how proud your dad will be when he sees you wearing this," said the wife of a member of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers to her four-year-old son as she tucked his poppy on to his jumper.

Most touching of all was a grandmother who, as she pinned a poppy to the lapel of her teenage grand-daughter, explained to her for the first time how the last six generations of their family had served in the Army.

"We haven't told you about it yet," she said. "But they did so much."

With all this goodwill out there, it seems a terrible shame that The Poppy Appeal is having trouble recruiting volunteers for its street collections.

Especially now, when there are men and women returning from the war in Iraq, just as in need of care and support as the generations before them.

It was a relief to come away with my faith in human kindness reinforced.

But my uplifted heart was tinged by guilt, too - that I'd thought for one moment the reaction would be in any way different from the way it was.