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