NEXT month will once again see me embarking on my annual pilgrimage to the former battlefields of the Western Front.

I came to historical research relatively late in life – as my more faithful readers will recall, it was the discovery of a long-lost Boer War Kruger shilling that originally triggered my epic odysseys through France and Flanders.

Until then, my only interest in the period had been relatively fleeting, all the more so because soldiering died out in my family more than a generation ago.

However, the onset of age tends to make us that little bit more reflective and I was no exception.

And so in order to understand the mindset of my more martiallyinclined ancestors, I steadily built up a library of soldiers’ tales, concentrating not so much on the chronological facts, rather on the lives of the ordinary people concerned.

The diary of Rifleman Harris, a soldier of the Peninsular War, was particularly illuminating. And the more I read, the greater my appreciation of the unique character of the British soldier.

Time and again, it became clear that while the trauma of shot and shell might be fleeting, the numbing privations of heat, wet and cold were often even greater trials for the foot-slogging infantry.

And that is why whenever I see footage from the current Afghan campaign or those all-too-familiar sad processions to churches up and down the land, I reflect that nothing ever really changes.

For centuries, the British have buried their war dead where they fell. Now, the relatives’ agonies are displayed for all to see.

Nearly a century ago, countless British streets drew their curtains to proclaim a loss. These days, grief is just another emotion played out with all the others on 24/7 telly.

Next month, I will once again visit the graves of men and boys cut down long before their time in a conflict that has now faded from living memory.

And as I read the invariably heart-rending messages etched in Portland stone from those longgone parents who saw their sons march off in 1914, I will once again be reminded of the sacrifice of the British soldier… a quality that remains unchanged by time or tide.