Tag: ww1
-
Boredom, bungles and dodging death: Charles Lander on the Western Front
What was is like to fight in the First World War? It is a question no living person can answer, but we have inherited many stories from the dead. My Great Grandfather, Charles Lander, kept a diary of his active service. It is a glimpse of the life of a fairly junior officer in a…
-
“I began to feel a little bit shaky”: Charles Lander in the Somme, 100 years ago
Painting above: ‘We Are Making a New World’ by Paul Nash 100 years ago today began the Battle of the Somme. Few episodes in human history are remembered with such a grand sense of supreme awfulness. But with this grandeur comes distance and incomprehension. As time passes the gulf widens: we need personal stories to…
-
Hope as Resistance: 16 Pictures of Dissent to World War One
The last surviving British veteran of the First World War, Harry Patch, died in 2009. With him dies the collective memory of a generation that fought, resisted, endured and dreamed. Living memory is a powerful thing. It can assert itself in ways the dead cannot. Patch himself met Tony Blair. He told him “war is…