Despite a keen interest in history, I’ve always been grateful to be the first generation not to have to go to war. My great grandfather was in the 1879 Zulu War but smart/lucky enough not to get there until Isandlwana was over.

Similarly, my dad’s mechanical bent got him a driver’s seat in the 44th RTR which saw action from Libya to Luebeck. But he was savvy enough to parlay his mechanic’s skills into ‘B’ Echelon, which got shot at rather less than the tanks themselves.

My grandfather George (‘Dod’) Brown did his patriotic bit by joining the Army Reserves in 1908. When war loomed in 1914 he hoped his age (34) might exempt him and leave him to the herring fishing; not a chance. Called up and mustered at Dunbar’s Lauderdale Barracks by the end of August, he was kitted out and given refresher training.

As a big lad (as were most of the Brown family) his posting to 2nd Battalion Scots Guards came as no surprise. And so, exactly a century ago this month, he joined them and the rest of the 7th Division forming in and around the New Forest in Hampshire.

Von Kluck’s 1st German Army had subdued the Belgian frontier forts in short order and marched south to envelop Paris, only to be repulsed at the Marne in early September. The British Expeditionary Force was ferried over to defend a line into western Belgium, with the 7th Division – including Dod – leaving in early October.

The 7th was rushed into the line between Menin and Ypres but not told the whole German 6th Army, including three Cavalry Corps, had been rushed from Alsace to face them. Subsequent bitter fighting cost the BEF some 50,000 casualties – mostly its experienced men. Stalemate finally came in November.

But before that, Private (they didn’t call them ‘Guardsman’ until 1918) Brown caught a shell explosion, shredding his lower left leg, which was then amputated below the knee. Because not severed at a joint, it caused him trouble for the remaining 42 years of his life and put paid to his living as a fisherman.

“Aye,” he would muse. “I was one of very few who did make it home for Christmas that year.” Then he’d pause, dip his head: “And, given what happened after, one of the lucky ones at that.”