Sir, - My wife and I went to Seaham Harbour to see the statue of a First World War soldier created by Ray Lonsdale.

It was very impressive with about two miles of welding to create a 9.5ft sculpture that captures the severe weariness of war. It brought back memories of my childhood when I was taken on beaches and battlefields holidays to Belgium with my grandfather and grandmother and my cousin June.

My grandfather, Charles Simpson, ran a large roofing business in in Durham City and he served in the First World War with the Northumberland Fusiliers. I went to Europe three times with them, the first time when I was about ten.

The period of 1914-18 was one of the wettest on record and many soldiers suffered from trench foot. Lice were everywhere. Soldiers rubbed their feet with grease made from whale oil every day and changed their socks twice a day. A battalion would use ten gallons of whale oil a day.

How men put up with these hardships is very difficult to envisage, plus the fighting as well. Just being there in the trenches was life-threatening in itself without the shelling and the bullets.

My grandad was wounded in his thigh. The surgeon thought it was a machine gun bullet and left his leg to heal. If it had been shrapnel his leg would have had to be amputated as there would have been too much debris in it. Those trips to Belgium, France and Holland made me grow up.

MALCOLM ROLLING Durham