Maybe it’s a sign of getting older and gaining a sense of my own mortality, but for me, this week has been one of reflection.

With the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, I’ve been surprised at just what an effect it has had on me.

Every year for pretty much as long as I can remember, we were joined on Christmas day by an elderly neighbour of my parents.

As children, he was the slightly grumpy man from next door who moaned if we made too much noise and sometimes refused to throw our ball back if it went over the fence.

A butcher by trade, he could talk for hours about every joint of meat you could imagine, and much to our horror, sometimes did exactly that.

He lived with his wife in a tiny bungalow and despite having five children, never seemed to see much of any of them.

Growing up, and as he got older, he softened and became a endearing man whom we saw a lot of. Every Christmas, he would join us in his Sunday best suit with war medals displayed proudly.

The routine was pretty much the same; he’d drink a bit too much, sing Ave Maria in a slightly wobbly voice which we dutifully clapped, and then tell us in exacting detail how he parachuted into Normandy on D-Day. His birthday was the day before D-Day and after 20 years of listening to this same story; I’m rather ashamed to say that there were a few wry glances among us as soon as we heard the phrase: “I remember the 6th of June 1944 like it was yesterday.”

That’s the thing about being young; it’s not that you don’t have respect for those like Jack, it’s just that it’s hard to relate to and so it doesn’t hold the same significance.

My own grandfathers both fought in the war, one being based for most of the five years in Africa and the other a prisoner of war in Japan and we grew up on a steady stream of stories about munitions factories and countless nights spent sleeping in the London underground.

I wish I had taken more interest in all these fascinating memories at the time, but for some reason it has only been the last few years that suddenly I’ve realised quite the significance of that period of time.

Last year, we took our boys to Arromanches in Normandy to try to bring the history of the war alive.

Our youngest, Charlie, has been fascinated by all things military for the past few years.

He eats, sleeps and breathes armies. Rarely seen out of his camouflage T-shirt and often found patrolling the perimeter of the garden with a plastic rifle slung over one shoulder, on “sniper patrol”, talking to the shrubs like war time comrades, he is verging on obsessed.

Our trip was incredible, there is no substitute for being where the action took place.

All the books and Wikipedia information in the world is nothing compared with standing on the beach, looking out at the quite remarkable remnants of the Mulberry harbour and visualising the horror that took place 70 years ago.

The bravery and courage of the men who launched themselves into the sea down the ramps of the landing craft, facing the total unknown and with their lives hanging in the balance is utterly incomprehensible.

There are no words that I could find to describe how that must have felt. Seeing the few remaining survivors at the anniversary celebrations was one of the most moving events I have ever witnessed.

Whatever we think of the principle of war, the fact remains that had it not been for those thousands of men, we could be living a very different life now, where UKIP gaining a few seats in a European Parliament (which would never have been formed) would be the very least of our worries.