The first world war and health - rethinking resilience (History of warfare volume: 130)

摘要

When I was at school my class studied the First World War. We were encouraged to speak to family members, and to find objects or heirlooms that came from the war. I asked my mother for help and she quickly came up with just what I needed. It was a pen pal letter from a soldier at the front, written to my great-grandmother when she was a schoolgirl. I re-read the letter and found it was still able to deliver a visceral closeness to events that are now more than a hundred years away: 'I would have liked greatly to enclose a souvenir to you from the country. It is not possible to buy things that girls like where I am. The village is a sorry sight to see the big houses the shops and the cottages, sometimes with only one wall standing; others completely raised [sic] to the ground. There is a church close to my billet and only three walls remain standing. That is one of the saddest sights of all.'