Writing a book on Boris Johnson, as planned, if I was to keep up my rhythm of books on recently departed prime ministers, would hardly help me do this. The patient, deeply compassionate, detail Seldon gives of these young soldiers is a worthy tribute to them – one aspect I haven’t mentioned is his sensitive portrayal of war memorials, and the preservation of trenches and destroyed villages which bear witness. But I turned aside from the personal ‘intrusions’, as I saw them, and I could not read the more distressing accounts of battle, so I’m left with a very fragmented impression of the book.

It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance. It was also notable that several times Seldon tells us how few people visited the various monuments and sites he came across - it does suggest that it is perhaps too late for this to be a project that will ever capture the imagination of massed pilgrims. Nonetheless, he was forced to give up his plans to become a doctor and suffered from violent mood swings. Tracing the historic route of the Western Front, he traversed some of Europe's most beautiful and evocative scenery, from the Vosges, Argonne and Champagne to the haunting trenches of Arras, the Somme and Ypres. The book naturally is written from the British perspective, not neglecting the other Allied Forces (even the Russian Expeditionary Force is mentioned!There is perhaps a slight jarring for me personally from the realisation that the social distance between Sir Anthony's ancestor Wilfred Willett (Cambridge, 2nd Lt, London Rifles) and mine - a Cardiff docker and gunner with the Welsh division on the Somme - is probably quite similar to the social distance between Sir Anthony and me today. But, in the afterword section, he assures us that the path is quickly becoming established, now fully way-marked in Belgium and ever more so through France, away from busy roads. His maternal grandfather was badly injured in December 1914 and seemed unlikely to survive, but his wife badgered the War Office to let her go to France and bring him home. To support the “Western Front Way”-initiative the author in the late summer of 2021 set out to walk the whole length “from the Vosges to the sea” .

The repeated sets of details of numbers killed, atrocities and more certainly hammer the point home, though over time it can feel a little repetitive.

However, as every experienced walker knowns, walking brings peace of mind and in the end he found it apart from possible routing for the “Western Front Way”.