TWO events last night celebrated the Birkenhead years of Britain’s finest war poet.

A new portrait of Wilfred Owen was unveiled at the museum opened in March and named in his honour on the town’s Argyle Street, near Hamilton Square station.

This ceremony preceded a preliminary performance of Bullets and Daffodils, a musical drama about Owen’s life.

Among those in attendance was John Gorman, famed for his comedy sketches on TV and as a member of the Scaffold, whose 60s hits included Thank U Very Much and Lily the Pink.

Gorman is organising a Festival of Wirral Firsts to be held in Hoylake and Oxton during July.

The portrait was painted by Anthony Brown, acclaimed in 2007 for his exhibition featuring prominent Merseysiders called 100 Heads Thinking As One, which marked the 800th anniversary of Liverpool being granted its Royal Charter by King John.

Now Owen enters Brown’s very own hall of fame, which includes musicians, comedians, actors and sportsmen, as well as other poets and writers.

Bullets and Daffodils was originally a cycle of songs about Owen composed by Dean Johnson, a respected musician and old boy of Birkenhead Institute, which Owen attended during his nine years in the town, when his father, Tom, was master at the Woodside railway station.