A 1980s comic strip told the story of a teenage Tommy

who fought in the Somme and Passchondale and across the Western Front.

More than four decades later, what does Charlie's War tell us about the Old Frontline?

Welcome back to Season 6 of the old front line podcast.

We're coming into our fourth year of this podcast now, which is quite amazing.

And I think that in the first few episodes of this season, we will tip the 1 million download mark. And that really,

from something that started during the pandemic when we couldn't visit those battlefields of

the Great War, that is really quite incredible. And just a few days ago, we had one of our

regular supporters evenings, and it was good to see so many of you there.

And I realised what a fantastic community that we've built up through this podcast.

And here we all are fascinated and passionate about the history of the Great War,

a group of like-minded friends.

And that is a really great feeling as we move on into this season,

a season which I hope will cover a lot of diverse subjects as we've done with previous seasons on the podcast

and we're starting this week with the first of a couple of looks at graphic novels of the First World War.

Now we could just do one episode on graphic novels and dip into quite a few,

and there will be a follow-up episode to this where we'll look at some different graphic novels

from different countries.

But I wanted to focus on one particular novel, one particular story really, in this

podcast, one that had a great effect on me and my pathway to the Great War. And that's

Charlie's War, which was a children's comic strip from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

And I often feel that for many of us, and I'm sure those of you listening will fill this too,

...