THE TV documentary about the mass evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk will be a fading memory, as midsummer beckons and the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings grabs our attention.

Many of the reminiscences that accompany the moment will have most of us shaking our heads in awe and disbelief.

But it's only when you're face to face with a Second World War veteran that the horror and the heroism comes home.

Fred Seiker is such a person.

The majority of our present 20-somethings will spend the prime of their lives worrying about mortgages and jobs, and about where the weekend social round will take them.

Mr Seiker spent his in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, surviving conditions few of us can conceive. Ironically, however, some good has come from those hellish years, if by an extraordinary route.

Had he not been imprisoned in the Far East, he wouldn't have been part of a TV documentary. Had he not appeared on television, his long-lost brother wouldn't have found him.

They have much to catch up on. While they do, the rest of us can surely spare a few minutes of each day reflecting on the part he - and men like him - played in ensuring a world where mortgages and jobs are the biggest influence on our health and well-being.

Just as the massed ranks of First World War veterans have all but left us, so the generation that lost its early adult years to the Second World War is growing old.

That's why people like Fred Seiker are important. We must listen to them, while we still can.