That's why I'm privileged to be able to be embarking on a project that will dominate BBC 1

That's why I'm privileged to be able to be embarking on a project that will dominate BBC 1 schedules this month It tries to show how war has shaped the UK's identity. It's been a lifelong obsession: a decade ago, as a documentary producer with BBC 2, I spearheaded a season of documentaries under the banner War and Peace. Two years later I mounted Channel 4's Bloody Bosnia season during that terrible conflict. As Controller of BBC 1, I feel we can finally and - I hope - memorably define a century of armed service and bloodshed with some of the biggest dramas and documentaries we've transmitted. After all, from literature to film, art to real life, it's been a century where war has shaped British life We began the century defending an empire. Just eight weeks before he'd lost his brother William, a drummer boy and my Great Uncle - yet another one of 20,000 soldiers who died in that notorious and savage campaign. With the Century of Conflict, I wanted to reflect the loss, the pride and the debt of honour we owe to every one of those tens of thousands of servicemen and women. Alongside All The King's Men , we also chronicle some of our most desperate moments, in the Second World War in a documentary series, Finest Hour , and end with our peacekeeping force enmeshed in Bosnia, the subject of our two-part drama Warriors . Selfishly, I hope my three young sons never join them, never know the fear and agonies of war, never feel the sort of remorse that I've felt as I've passed that lonely graveyard statue, standing to attention with its grey puttees and battered helmet. And yet, I've been fascinated by Europe's century of conflict - as a boy, as I was growing up and later as a television producer. His name is on the Hellas War Memorial, a 30m-high obelisk that can still be seen by ships passing through the Dardanelles He was a Private in his 20s. It's close to where generations of my own family have been buried: my Grandfather Alexander - whose own father Alexander died at Gallipoli - and my uncle, all three of whom served in the same East Lancashire Regiment, and my own father who joined the RAF towards the end of the Second World War. My own great grandfather even has a sad and rather curious connection with BBC 1's popular star David Jason. Jason plays Captain Frank Beck in our autumn centrepiece drama All The King's Men.

Beck, late of the King's Regiment and general manager of King George V's Sandringham Estate, disappeared with his men in a wall of enemy fire in Gallipoli in August 1915. The story of that vanished battalion, said Winston Churchill in 1919, was "the greatest unsolved mystery of this century". My Great Grandfather, Alexander Shapcott, died that very same month on that very same Turkish peninsula. And their service stirs up complex feelings in me. I can recall the statue of a soldier boy that dominates this windswept North of England graveyard. And, as with many others, images of war haunted my imagination then - and they do still. So many of my close relations have served in the armed forces this century. Anyone who has grown up in this war-torn century has been touched at some time by loss and sadness.

Whether it was Gallipoli in the First World War or the Battle of Britain in the Second, whether it was fighting wars or keeping peace, this country's military campaigns have shaped our lives and scarred our collective consciousness. Global conflict has traumatic local consequences. That idea of the bigger story, told by personal voices and individual histories, is at the root of a trilogy of programmes about to start on BBC 1. The season, Century of Conflict, marks a career-long ambition for me. It is a personal reflection and a public tribute, and it recalls some key events in our century while they still resonate strongly. I was brought up in a Lancashire mill town, hundreds of miles away from any front yet with a bleak cemetery that told its own nightmares. Anyone who has grown up in this war-torn century has been touched at some time by loss and sadness. Whether it was Gallipoli in the First World War or the Battle of Britain in the Second, whether it was fighting wars or keeping peace, this country's military campaigns have shaped our lives and scarred our collective consciousness. The balancing act, as ever, will be staying true to the editorial philosophy while generating enough revenue to turn Quest into a viable long-term proposition. "I'm sure some people will think I'm mad taking on the Goliaths in this way," he admits.

"But there has to be a place for a magazine like this." And if there isn't? Well, he still has a few other ideas - including a new-look women's magazine.. And he is confident that at the relatively low cover price of £2.25, sales will soon match the initial 50,000 print run. Whether he can pull it off remains to be seen. There will be no fashion spreads, shopping columns or "girlie shots" in the title, which launches in February. "There's a moral issue here. Our focus will be on whether they are really engaged, stimulated, happy in their lives Men have had abattering on all fronts since the Sixties. This is about encouraging men to become more confident about being themselves," Kennedy believes. With Blue Sky run as a "virtual" company - half a dozen staff will be based in Tunbridge Wells, with sales executives in London and contributors anywhere - Kennedy says overheads can be kept low. If the worst comes to the worst, he adds, available funds will stretch to three issues with no advertising income - an unlikely scenario, he claims. Many men drive themselves too hard because they assume it is expected.

So the editorial mix of the first issue includes an interview with George Graham, an article about a female bouncer, a motoring column examining the practical benefits of new carsand how to define "success". Meanwhile, Esquire 's monthly sales between January and June this year were 100,380 compared with 112,160 in 1998. Further proof came with the departure from GQ of Loaded 's former editor James Brown. A subsequent shift away from Brownish laddism resulted in GQ monthly sales of 145,144 between January and June this year - up from 130,152. Meanwhile, last spring, IPC brought out Later , a new title for post- Loaded lads. But Kennedy says he opened a bottle of champagne when he saw Later 's first issue "It so wasn't what I was trying to do," he explains.