Biography

It wasn't worth it. No war is worth it. No war is worth the loss of a couple of lives let alone thousands. T'isn't worth it...the First World War, if you boil it down, what was it? Nothing but a family row. That's what caused it. The Second World War...Hitler wanted to govern Europe, nothing to it. I would have taken the Kaiser, his son, Hitler and the people on his side and bloody shot them. Out the way and saved millions of lives. T'isn't worth it.

Opposite my bedroom there is a window and there is a light over the top. Now when the staff go into that room they put the light on. If I was half asleep the light coming on was the flash of a bomb. That flash brought it all back. For eighty years I've never watched a war film, I never spoke of it, not to my wife. For six years, I've been here [in the nursing home]. Six years it's been nothing but World War One. As I say, World War One is history, it isn't news. Forget it.

[looking out over a nearly endless sea of white military gravestones] When you look at it, why did they die?

[giving a speech at the Menin Gate war memorial] Let us remember our brethren who fell - on *both* sides of the line.

[talking about a fellow soldier who was killed in front of him in the trenches] He died. I held his hand for the last thirty seconds of his life. [wipes tears from his eyes]