Just one British First World War veteran remains after the death of 111 year old Harry Patch. Mr Patch was himself the last eyewitness to the horror of the trenches of the Western Front. His death came just a week after the passing of Henry Allingham, the last British survivor of the Royal Navy and RAF from the Great War.

It's hard for anyone born long after the two world wars to imagine the courage and fortitude shown by Harry Patch and his generation. In an era when the media gets hysterical about a mild version of influenza, the thought of 19,000 men dying in battle on a single day is almost beyond our imagination. (Let alone the flu epidemic that killed more people than the Great War, including my grandfather's twin brother.) 

In the long hours waiting for our son Owen to be born last year, I read Mr Patch's moving account of his life, The Last Fighting Tommy, written with Richard van Emden. I was very conscious that Owen would be able to say in later life that he was born before the death of the last Great War veterans.