The haunting image of a fallen soldier stares out today from a new 1st Class Poppy stamp commemorating the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

It's part of a five-stamp miniature sheet going on sale on the eve of Remembrance Sunday.

Commemorating the Armistice that brought an end to four years of fighting in the Great War this dramatic poppy stamp is part of a set that represents soldiers from around the UK who gave their lives in the conflict.

Royal Mail and the Royal British Legion joined forces to produce the sheet, explains the Legion's organiser in Northern Ireland Bill Craig.

“The symbol of the poppy on this stamp is a fitting tribute,” he adds, “and upholds the memory of soldiers from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who paid the ultimate sacrifice in that awful conflict.”

The new set is the third and final in a Royal Mail Lest We Forget series. On the 2006 Battle of the Somme issue, poppies were seen blooming from the stems of barbed wire, while last year’s Passchendaele stamp contained silhouetted soldiers emerging from a poppy.

The new Poppy stamp and the Poppy designs from 2006 and 2007, are now available as single stamps in a 30-stamp sheet.