Another view onto a plain, this time, driving up into the hills near Verdun to Fort Vaux. Here in these hills in 1916 nearly six hundred thousand French and Germans died, battling over a few square kilometres. A photograph of Forts Vaux and Douamont shows them completely obliterated by shell holes.

On Thursday in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe I had spoken up about the plight of Christians in Syria, increasingly under threat, the first Christian community in the world outside the Holy Land, yet war goes on even after Verdun. People said never again.

On Saturday back in a small country church in Lincolnshire, I read of the local vicar agreeing to spend five nights under canvas without any home comforts in order to raise £500 for the Alzheimers Society. £500 is enough to pay for one researcher for one day. Hundreds of thousands of Britons have their lives blighted by Alzheimers.