A CHARD war veteran who is now the town’s mace bearer and a published military poet will be taking to the stage to share his writings and stories from his life.

Clive Sanders is also the president of the town’s branch of the Royal British Legion, and his most popular poem has been viewed more than three million times online.

He will be holding a reading from his book, Military Verse, as well as sharing some stories from his army life at Chard Library on Thursday, June 29 from 2.30pm.

Mr Sanders said: “I am delighted with the chance to read some of my Military Verse, and tell the odd tale or two about my years in the army, at the Chard Library on Thursday, June 29.

“I joined the Army in 1965 and after my training in the Royal Corps of Signals I was posted to Germany in November 1966.

“I started writing poems, mainly as a way of getting back at some of the nastier senior NCOs (non-commissioned officer) that plagued our lives as young soldiers.

“I often get comments that my poems remind people of Rudyard Kipling and I deem these as a great compliment.

“I continued writing light hearted poems throughout my long army career, but it was only when I retired in 2012 that my poems took on a more serious mood.

“I had served two operational tours in Bosnia during the mid-1990s and some of the things I witnessed there had a lasting influence on my poems.

“I found that I could establish a readership of my poems through social media and initially I was delighted every time I achieved a weekly readership of 500 people on my Facebook page, Somerset Landscape Artist and Poet.

“But in 2013 I wrote a poem, Unless You’ve Been A Soldier. This poem took me only about 10 minutes to write, but after I had written it I had to go for a walk as it affected me so much.

“I was amazed to see that it had been viewed overnight by over 30,000 people. By the end of the day nearly 100,000 people had viewed the poem and it has currently been viewed and copied more than three million times.

“I have also been asked and gladly agreed to it being used in Remembrance Day services in UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France and Cyprus.

“I can write a new poem every few days and now normally have a weekly readership of my poems of around 20,000 people a week.

“As an army veteran, I wanted to help serving soldiers and members of the other armed forces and veterans, so I joined the Chard branch of RBL in 2005, and took on the role of secretary in 2012.

“I am now the branch president, which is a great privilege and I am delighted that we now have a younger committee than in the past, who are very proactive in arranging events.

“I also donate £1 from the sale of each book to RBL, to help support the armed forces, families and veterans.

“For some years I have been very active in arranging the Remembrance Day events in Chard and when the post of mace bearer to the Mayor of Chard became vacant in 2015, I volunteered to take on the role.”