My mother's mother was married twice, had two children by her first husband, who died at the Somme.

She married again and had had a baby when her husband was shot in the right arm and then gassed at the first aid post.

He survived because he was naturally left handed and could unpack, put on and fix his gas mask in time, whilst other men died around him. The medics tended to group men with similar wounds together - in this case not a good idea.

The two younger children died of diptheria, but her husband returned home after recouperating, and they had seven more children, but he did not see the last one as he died of pneumonia shortly before she was born.

Just to put things in context - the influenza epidemic after the war killed more people than the fighting - and it was a strain which tended to kill the younger, stronger people rather than the older generation.

If, at the time of The Great War, there had been vaccines and antibiotics available many many more people would have survived. That so many did die was not just due to gas, bombs and bullets.