Letters from the Trenches
(2012)
An account of the Bourne
soldiers who wrote home to their loved ones from the
Great War of 1914-18 and the subsequent peace
celebrations
by Rex Needle
The Great War produced a mass of correspondence
between the troops at home and abroad and their families
and friends but only a fraction of these letters have
survived, often in dusty archives and attics, and some
will never be read.
Yet it is from this huge volume of writing that we are
able to judge for ourselves the horrors they faced, the
risks they took, the arduous conditions under which they
lived and the friendships forged.
This small selection was collected mainly by Joseph
Davies, headmaster of the Bourne Boys’ School which the
soldiers had attended and who took the trouble to keep
in touch after they had left for the front. Yet from
these few letters we are able to gauge the strength of
feeling for home and country and, more importantly, a
deep anger and bitterness against those responsible for
the war.
The book is
available as 3 PDF files:
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