The Trench: Experiencing Life on the Front Line, 1916 by Richard Van Emden (Corgi £8.99)

ON numerous occasions during my visits to the old battle lines of the Western Front, I have tried to imagine what life was really like for the ordinary soldier.

From Ypres to Arras, along the old Roman road from Bapaume to Albert, there is an atmosphere of tranquillity that seems at variance with the awful events of 1914-18.

The visitor stands and stares, as if waiting for something... anything.

The static war of attrition that was to provide the enduring images of the First World War has become a cliche, in much the same way that successive generations have formed their opinions of the conflict on the strength of reading a Siegfried Sassoon poem, or two, at school.

So, when it was announced that the television series on which this book is based was to be screened last year, I had my doubts about the value of descendants of the 1st Hull Pals recreating life in a front line trench on the Somme.

There would indeed be cold and wet, but no one risked being killed or wounded. And you might go down with a fever, but there would be no snipers waiting to take off the top of your skull should you forget to keep your head down.

Well, I was wrong. For the meticulous care and reverence with which the Khaki Chums treated this subject was beyond reproach.

As member Taff Gillingham put it: "Detractors would say that we do not experience the fear, but it was never about that. This is about the everyday life, the trials and tribulations of the soldier.

"It's pouring with rain, your blanket's soaked, your tunic's soaked, you can't get your Tommy cooker alight so you can't get a cup of tea..."

This companion to the TV series is, however, mainly concerned with the actual conditions in 1916, providing a backdrop to the present-day experiment.

Wisely, it avoids the usual chronology of battles, apart from scattering dates and events in order to provide context.

However, this is not just about the almost unimaginable suffering and stress endured by those thousands of young men, many of whom were going to their deaths in the chalky uplands of Northern France.

Much of this account deals with the remarkable devotion to duty displayed by the typical British Tommy going about his dangerous occupation with good humour and stoicism.

It's almost impossible to imagine how people today would cope with conditions such as these.

Perhaps American Civil War general Robert E Lee had summed it up half a century before, when, surveying the "butcher's bill" at Fredericksburg, he is supposed to have observed: "It is good that war is so bad, otherwise men might grow fond of it."

I have this feeling that the ancestors of the Khaki Chums would agree.

John Phillpott