Unlike many, Harry lived on until the age of 111, by which time he had become the last British survivor of the World War One trenches. Despite not talking publicly about his war experiences until late in life, he came to represent the generation of ordinary men who served in the First World War. When he died in 2009, over 1,000 people, including dignitaries from around the world, attended his funeral.

But when war broke out, men like Harry were not seen as heroes-in-waiting. Instead it was a very different type of soldier who captured the public imagination.

BY RUPERT BROOKE

If I should die, think only this of me:

      That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

      In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

      Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

      Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

      A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

            Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

      And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

            In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.