This wants lingering on for a moment – an anti-war story was more popular amongst boys than all the other stories that often glorified war. I was so shocked and gutted by either their blatant snobbery or blatant censorship – I didn’t know which – I just didn’t know what to say.

A massive British tank attack breaks the German line at Cambrai but the offensive is halted due to in-decision by the British commanders. The source Mills used was the only source for many years about the covered up mutiny – The Monocled Mutineer by Farley and Allison has since been rubbished as wishful thinking in later years for trying to place Toplis in the Camp when it is known he was in prison in England at the time.Back in France, Charley finds his shell-shocked son Len at Dunkirk and they escape back to Britain together.

Of course the poppy is today used for propaganda purposes, more than when the Titan editions started.

On 11 November, the final day of the war, Snell is determined to have the symbolic honour of reaching Mons, pointlessly expending his men's lives. Eventually, back on the front line, he faces death once more as a stretcher bearer at the final battle of Passchendale. Rather, they are in the same genre as the ‘War is Hell’ films Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket . Another diversion was when the storyline turned to Charley's younger brother Wilf and his experiences as an observer/gunner in the Royal Flying Corps in early 1918. Most officers of the Great War suffered the same hardships that the men did and although it did happen, the image of the Officers eating fresh game in a cosy front line trench while the men died in mud outside are a little over worked.