... But then there’s a lot about labour that nobody puts in so many words. Nobody ever told me that after the birth, I would feel as shaken as if I’d been in a car crash. That was how I felt for about two days after my oldest son was born, 32 years ago. I now see it as my fatherly, comradely duty to pass on that kind of information, sparing no gory detail, to young men about to see service in that war zone for the first time. Nobody else — certainly not those fluffy prenatal classes — will...