THEY say "lest we forget" - but in Hampshire it would appear that most have forgotten.

The vital work and support performed by the Royal British Legion for ex-servicemen could be under threat after figures revealed a drop in the number of poppy collectors.

Last year the amount raised from poppy collections in Hampshire during Remembrance Tide - the two weeks preceding Remembrance Day on November 11 - fell by almost £17,100, or two and a half per cent on the year before.

In Southampton that figure was a three and a half per cent fall, or £1,300.

Now the Daily Echo has teamed up with the Royal British Legion to encourage more people to get out and collect in memory of those who have served their country.

Retired Colonel Shane Hearn, the Royal British Legion's Hampshire field officer, said: "Last year the appeal was down by two and a half per cent, because we did not have enough collectors in the street. In Southampton, we only had 16 collectors.

"We feel it's our duty to give everybody the opportunity to buy a poppy."

Yesterday the Royal British Legion launched the start of Remembrance Tide with a bang by firing poppies from an original First World War cannon at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth.

The Legion was formed in 1922 and the poppy became the remembrance symbol as it was the flower found grown in the battlefields of the First World War.

Last year £684,375 was collected in Hampshire and £36,537 was raised in Southampton by the Poppy Appeal, which funds the Legion's vital welfare work with the ex-Service community.

Each year, thousands of veterans and their families from the two world wars and more recent conflicts including Korea, Suez, the Falklands, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and the two Gulf Wars, receive financial and care support.