Sorry to dissappoint you Pete but read this:

An email that has circulated during July and August for several years is again hitting inboxes in 2009. The message informs recipients that the planet Mars will be passing very close to Earth in August. While this information was valid back in 2003, it is totally inaccurate for 2009. One of the 2009 incarnations of the hoax consists of a PowerPoint slide presentation that provides basically the same information as contained in email along with several photographs of Mars. Claims that Mars will pass close to Earth in August 2009 are untrue The year is not specifically mentioned in the message and a great many recipients therefore assume that the message refers to August, 2009. Virtually identical (and equally misleading) messages were circulating back in July and August 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. The events outlined in the message were more or less true back in 2003 although they were a little hyped even then. According to NASA, on August 27, 2003, Earth and Mars were the closest they have been for around 60,000 years. Mars was indeed a spectacular site in the night sky during several months of 2003.

It was 2003 that I saw mars above the Knockholt field and it was just the size of a regular star with definite red/orange colour.