When it comes to turning on the waterworks, I’m a bit of a hard nut.

I rarely cry at films (the end of Whistle Down The Wind always gets me, but little else), and I’d never cry in public. Not for me the communal sobbing that, since the mass grieving of Princess Diana, we’re expected to indulge in every time a football team loses or a boyband splits up.

Maybe 20 years of journalism, and the objective approach to human tragedy that goes with it, has left me with a hard heart. Or maybe it’s because I grew up with my dad’s gallows humour, which helps me handle adversity much more than blubbing like a baby would.

Sometimes though, a sliver of emotion takes me by surprise.

I recently came across a bundle of papers belonging to my grandfather, who died before I was born. Although I have a few old photographs of him, and my mum spoke of him occasionally, I’ve never really given him much thought.

But going through items kept in his Army Certificate booklet, I felt very moved. Among crumpled bits of paper, and old foreign banknotes kept from his wartime service overseas, was a typed letter headed ‘A Personal Message from the Army Commander’ dated February 3, 1943.

It stated that, three months after the Battle of Egypt began, the Eighth Army had captured Tripoli and “driven the enemy to the West”.

The message continued: “The defeat of the enemy in battle at Alamein, the pursuit of his beaton army, and the final capture of Tripoli – a distance of some 1,400 miles from Alamein – has all been accomplished in three months. This achievement is probably without parallel in history”.

There were thanks to each soldier for “the wonderful support you have given me”.

Glancing at the bottom of the letter, I saw it was from B L Montgomery. That would be General, later Field Marshall, Bernard Law Montgomery, regarded as the finest British field commander since the Duke of Wellington.

Another letter urges the Eighth Army on to what would be the final Allied victory, in Tunisia. Montgomery writes: “The eyes of the world will be on the Eighth Army. Millions of people will listen to the wireless, hoping anxiously for good news... let us see that they get good news.”

My grandfather fought in the battle of El Alamein, the turning point in the Second World War, and I hadn’t even known.

It wasn’t crying that got him through the war, and from what I know of him he wouldn’t appreciate any fuss. But, folding up the letters, I allowed myself a moment before blinking back the tears pricking my eyes.