This time of year, as the days get ever shorter, my mind goes back to the many winters I have spent on the Somme. During the very first temperatures mirrored those of the coldest winter of the Great War, when it dropped to nearly -25 in the front line area. For Western Europe that was cold, and it gave me renewed respect for the men who lived in those muddy, often snow-filled ditches during that time.

Snow has yet to fall on the Somme this year but this image from 2012 shows a light dusting over the battlefield between Courcelette and Pozières close sunset.