One of my dear OH’s pastimes is an interest in history, which mainly keeps him out of mischief, and when he’s home from offshore the television seems to be mainly tuned to ‘Yesterday‘ and Time Team. He also has an Ebay habit, and when he’s not buying shirts (don’t get me started on the shirts!) he’s looking at photos and postcards, military badges and bugles. The photos and postcards are a great resource for interesting stuff about uniforms apparently and on the whole I’ve paid just a passing interest in the odd things which turn up in the post to be squirrelled away in his ‘office’.
But yesterday I was called in to help open a well taped little packet which required the use of fingernails and small sharp things which a crafter would have to hand.
When I eventually got through the wrapping I was confronted by this…
…which stopped me short. These days everything is documented, photographed, passed around, tagged. And yet within living memory one photograph maybe the only record that a mother may have of her not quite grown up son as he is sent off to fight for his country.
And this is the photograph. Regimental cooks with their ladles and pots, striking a pose and some of them looking so young… How many survived? And if they survived what injuries, both mental and physical, did they carry with them? We don’t even know who wrote the words on the back. Was it the young man at the back, hand on hip looking defiantly at the camera, or the slightly nervous lad on his right who looks barely old enough to shave?
And this one….
…sent. I presume to a sweetheart. from B. E. F. France on Monday 12th November 1917…
…which says:
My Dear G,
….as promised it is a photo of a group of Signallers we had taken here. I hope you will survive the shock of looking at it. Many thanks for your letter here received quite safely today. I am pleased you are well as I am in the pink at present. Kindest regards to Eileen, with love from your (I think) Frank xxx
I hope Frank returned to Miss G Rogers and they had a long and happy life together, ‘in the pink’…
But who knows?
Planet Penny isn’t usually a sad place, but sometimes we need to stop and think.
I can’t imagine how it must have felt to wave goodbye to a son, a husband, a sweetheart, a brother and send them off to war. For a short while yesterday, looking at those photos from nearly 100 years ago, it seemed very real and I wanted to share them with you.
I hope these postcards from the past move you too….x
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Thank you for sharing this, it’s so sweet and sad at the same time, there is no way I could send my two boys of to war…and hope I never have to.
Over the next four to five years I think we will come face to face with many of these images and thoughts. A few years ago I found myself sitting with my aged father who was having a transfusion at the old West Norwich Hospital. On the walls were photos of ‘old Norwich’ including volunteers marching across (I think) Bank Plain having just signed up. In the front row was my grandfather Jack Gibling and my great uncle Farley Bond in the third row. They both returned, but never spoke about the front except for silly jokes and puns. Bit like ‘The Wipers Times’. But watching the series on BBC in the 1960s with original footage, tears streamed down his face. For so many these were experiences too awful to speak about.
A while ago one of Mr P’s cousins gave me her Mum’s button tin and among all the buttons were several different ones from wartime uniforms. I spent a long time wondering who had worn them, where they had been and what they had seen. Sadly I will never find out as there is even less to go on than on your postcards. I wrote a blog post about it too.
I’ve ended up with all sorts of family photos,including loads from my Mother’s unmarried cousin. Amongst them were two that I found particularly moving.I knew from listening to older members of the family that her Father “wasn’t the same” after the war and ended up working as gardener for his Commanding officer.He was in a field artillery troop and there are two group photos of them, one at the start of the war and one at the end. Shocking to see the change in the young men.
How wonderful that they have survived even if the people didn’t. A wonderful record of a brief moment in time! I hope they are still all “in the pink”! Would be great if a relative saw this and completed the story!
I think one of the saddest letters I know was written by my Uncle’s grandmother. She wanted a photo of her two sons in new zealand as she hadn’t seen them since they were 16 and 18 and didn’t know what they now looked like. They were in their forties at the time.
viv in nz
Those poor young men – who can know what they must have felt. So very sad.