Standing solemnly in silent contemplation at the Aldershot Military Cemetery, soaking in the summer sunshine, eternity faces me carved in stone – a reality so far removed from the bravado of war or the romance of its poets that it jolts.

Here, as close to that poetic earth referred to as “forever England” as I ever care to get, the grass grows like memories, obscuring the past. But remember, and remember we must. So this, the same day every year, is what I do.

There is an old birthday card joke that graces countless cards about ageing being far better than the alternative. I agree. Today, of all days, the sixtieth anniversary of my birth, I’m acutely aware of that. Conscious that I’ve been granted a gift in growing old, aware that others have not been so fortunate.

For years, I laboured under the absurd yet innocent misapprehension that nothing awful could happen to you on your birthday. Until that day, I discovered how naive I’d been with the tale of one young man. I remember well the shiver sent down my spine when I first read the date on the headstone.

24576855, Private Neil Grose, B........

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