Being a garrulous and gossipy journalist I find it difficult to keep quiet for two seconds, let alone two minutes. So this week I made my act of remembrance in a rather different way. I went to the University of Essex, outside Colchester, to see an oak casket that speaks almost as profoundly of sacrifice, heroism and the anguish of war as the flag-draped coffins returning almost daily from Afghanistan.

It is Steve McQueen’s stunning artwork, Queen and Country. I first encountered it when it was unveiled at the Manchester International Festival more than two years ago. Since then it has travelled round the country (after Colchester it goes to the National Portrait Gallery in London in the spring). But I found it even more poignant and powerful on second viewing. Perhaps that’s because (as many people have observed over the past few days) the continuing death toll of British soldiers in Afghanistan has thrust these tragic losses to the forefront of public consciousness.

McQueen was sent to Iraq for six days in 2003 as the Imperial War Museum’s official war artist. Unlike the Scottish painter Peter Howson, who created grotesque and graphic images of real-life incidents after going to Bosnia in the same role in the 1990s, McQueen apparently felt too cossetted and controlled by his military minders to get any proper feel for the reality of the war zone. But what he did observe was the calm dedication and devotion to duty of the young men and women serving in the British forces.

So when he returned he devised a remarkable project to commemorate, and celebrate, those who had paid the ultimate sacrifice. He contacted the families of all the service personnel killed in Iraq, and asked them to select a favourite photograph of their lost son or daughter (or husband or wife) in uniform. He then created facsimile sheets of “postage stamps”, each sheet carrying multiple images of the dead soldier as well as the details of his or her age, regiment, and date of death.

Both the Ministry of Defence and the Imperial War Museum were initially unenthusiastic about the idea. No surprise there. The dead soldiers’ families, on the other hand, were not. More than 80 per cent of the relatives approached agreed to participate.

The result was this large oak cabinet containing 155 vertical drawers, each of which can be pulled out to disclose the images and details of a single soldier. The pictures of the 155 servicemen and women are arranged chronologically in the order in which they died — from the four Royal Marines and three members of the Royal Regiment of Artillery who all died on the black day of March 21, 2003, to Sergeant “Baz” Barwood of the RAF, who was killed on February 29 last year.

And once you have seen these faces, they are unforgettable. At least, that’s my belief. I truly think that the photograph of the 19-year-old Eleanor Dlugosz, of the Royal Army Medical Corps —grinning cheekily in bright red lipstick and an army cap several sizes too big for her — will be imprinted on my memory for ever. So will the barely pubescent features of 18-year-old Rifleman Aaron Lincoln. They look as if they belong in a school photo, not a cabinet of war dead.

The Turner Prize-winning McQueen can often be shockingly provocative and partisan, as in Hunger, his coruscating film about the internment of IRA members. But with Queen and Country he has been scrupulously even-handed. As you pull out the drawers and gaze on those fresh, eager faces, you may well be moved to question whether the outcome of these “wars against terror” as yet justifies the price being paid by service personnel and their families. But the work itself is clearly neither anti-war nor pro-war. It is just a very potent and unique form of memorial for some very brave young people.

That’s important to stress, in view of what must now be said. It was never McQueen’s intention that Queen and Country should exist only as an oak cabinet. With the overwhelming support of the families, he approached the Royal Mail with the suggestion that it issues the soldiers’ images as official postage stamps — thus making a public gesture of gratitude towards the young men and women who gave everything “for Queen and country”. Julie Maddison, the mother of one of the Royal Marines who died in the first month of the Iraq war, puts it very well: “A commemorative stamp is a small price to pay for a life, but a respectful way to remind us of those who gave their lives for the war in Iraq, whether we agree with the war or not.” A survey carried out last year by the Art Fund charity found that 69 per cent of the public, and 92 per cent of the Armed Forces, agreed with her.

Unfortunately, the Royal Mail doesn’t. You might have thought that our postal service needs all the good publicity it can get right now. And here it has been presented with a project that is popular with the public, that would win some much-needed positive headlines, and would almost certainly cover its costs and perhaps make a profit that could be turned over to charities for wounded soldiers and bereaved families.

So what does it do? Its small-minded managers conjure up one flimsy excuse after another to avoid doing the right thing. The scheme would apparently set a dangerous precedent. It comes too soon after the Iraq conflict. And (can you believe this?) the bereaved families might get upset if the images of their loved ones were smudged by franking machines.

That’s surely nothing but tosh and procrastination. The families know that postage stamps are stuck on letters and parcels, and might be defaced in the mailing process. That is the whole point of the project — getting the images out into everyday life, landing on the nation’s doormats each morning. It is a one-off venture, not a “dangerous precedent” — but even if it does set a precedent, so what? And why does it come “too soon”? Britain has withdrawn from Iraq. Now is precisely the right time for remembering, for reflecting — and for reckoning the true cost.

Of course the Royal Mail doesn’t want to do anything that might be seen as politically biased. Yet the decision not to issue the stamps is itself biased — biased towards politicians who might be embarrassed or shamed by the continual reminder of the war dead. I very much hope that the weight of public opinion will force a change of heart. The Art Fund has started an online petition urging the Royal Mail to reconsider the matter (www.artfund.org/queenandcountry), and 21,000 people have already put their names to it.

But if that doesn’t do the trick, perhaps the Queen herself should intervene. After all, it’s her mail. And those soldiers are dying in her name — as well as ours.

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