​I found this photo in my mother’s effects after she died in February 2018. Looking into my grandmother’s eyes (top right) and those of her friends in a moment of a day on the beach whilst trench warfare raged just across the channel, certainly produces both a profound and disturbing feeling. I read anxious eyes and sad emotions beneath uncertain smiles. Moreover, I myself might not have existed if my gran had not met my grandfather and he had not failed his medical because of his angina, and had instead fought and died in the First World War, along with his 700,000 compatriots who did.