Aye, was the "we're here because we're here" songI'd love to have seen that, although I may have struggled to keep it together.
This brings the scale of it home even more. Heartbreaking.![]()
19,240 "Shrouds of the Somme" installation, commemorating the dead from Day 1. Brings it home to you.
I skim read an article a few days ago that mentioned the Somme and performance art and dismissed it as a bit of a gimmick.Whoever came up with the idea of the
Ghost soliders is a genius
Very moving
This was me this morning after the 2 minute silence. Just started me thinking of my Dad and his Dad being unable to communicate anything about WW1 to him before Dad went off to WW2. And he died while he was away. Just so sad. And Dad was the same - he hated seeing the men who used to take part in parades with their medals and spoke very little about what he actually went through. Everyone deals with it differently and in their own way. And men of Dad/Grandad's generation rarely showed their feelings.I don't cry very often, can't remember the last time I did, but watching some the segments on the news this morning it just hit me and the tears came. This has been a brilliant thread with some amazing posts which have been brilliant to read and it's important that, although they are heartbreaking, we keep posting these amazing memories so that we never ever forget.
I read a superb book a few years ago about WW1 which was a collection of events and soldiers letters home. I've been meaning to read it again but couldn't remember the title. Is it Forgotten Voices?"One night I was in the line - I was helping the medical officer in his job and doing my own at the same time - when two men came in. The first was one of our men, the other was a German, and they were both wounded. Our man said to the doctor, Here's a job I made for you doctor, and he made this one for me". What could you do with men like that? They were grand".
Reverend John Duffield. Chaplain Lancashire Battalion, Bantam Brigade. From "Forgotten Voices".
Grand indeed. Although we can't hold a candle to them we can light one in their memory.
It could be, although Forgotten Voices is compiled from tapes.I read a superb book a few years ago about WW1 which was a collection of events and soldiers letters home. I've been meaning to read it again but couldn't remember the title. Is it Forgotten Voices?
Hmm, I'll have to have a Google, this book definitely had extracts from letters in it.It could be, although Forgotten Voices is compiled from tapes.
I think you mean a book called Love, Tommy by Andrew Roberts (published 2012)? - although it not just the 1st World War? - its a collection of letters written from WW1 all way through to modern warfare (2008) and was published in association with Imperial War MuseumsI read a superb book a few years ago about WW1 which was a collection of events and soldiers letters home. I've been meaning to read it again but couldn't remember the title. Is it Forgotten Voices?
I think the chances of being a serving soldier and being killed in WWI was less than 10%. You had more chance of being wounded and even greater chance of coming home unscathed, apart from a lot of mental anguish and torture (which wasn't recognised back then).I have trouble identifying with them, being a professional coward. Volunteer for operation almost certain death? Aye, sign us up.
At least since then you have a fighting chance. Thank fuck.