My interest in the Great War originated from two sources.
Firstly, my Grandfather had served on the Western Front in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps. After the war he joined Avro and later was involved in engineering design on the Gloster Whittle.
Secondly, I had hundreds of the Airfix German and British infantry when I was a little boy. I used to dig trenches at the end of my mother's lawn and make endless coils of barbed wire by winding wire around pencils. I spent weeks over the summer holidays extending the trenches until they covered a front over ten feet long. Even now my mother occasionally digs up an unknown soldier 35 years later!