‘Wisdom is the daughter of experience’. So said Leonardo Da Vinci many hundreds of years ago.

Just over a century ago Claude Choules was born in Pershore. On March 3, 1901, to be precise, making him 110 years old yesterday.

What makes Mr Choules significant, of course, is that he is now the last surviving male veteran of the First World War.

World War One, or as it used to be called, the Great War.

So long ago that it is now a subject taught to primary school children. Officially history.

Not to Mr Choules, of course. The war to him is real. He lived it.

Where we now wonder at the sheer scale of the slaughter, or try to imagine the fear living under the cloud of such high rates, Mr Choules remembers it personally.

We salute him today, the last of the very many brave servicemen who answered their country’s call from 1914 onwards.

He did it not once, but twice, serving in the Australian Navy in the Second World War.

But at a time when leaders across the world are making varyingly bellicose comments about committing armed forces to Libya, the comments of Mr Choules’ family make interesting reading.

Mr Choules, they say, refuses to march in Anzac Day parades, does not mark Remembrance Sunday.

Over the years he has become more and more pacifist in his views.

Not unlike many other WW1 veterans.

His family want him remembered as a sensitive family man strongly opposed to war.

Did that experience so long ago give Mr Choules a wisdom we should take note of today in this turbulent world?