History
-
Struck down by the Flu
One of the reasons I continue to be interested in the Great War is not the greater histories, the battles, the politics, the way it shaped the world in ways that are still felt today. Rather it is the individual stories, at turns tragic, or heroic, at times funny, many times profoundly sad. The Great
-
In life, Service.
Often on a grave in France, there is an inscription. One of the principals of War Graves Commission was that all of the fallen would be treated equally. The headstones were simple and essentially the same, no bodies were allowed to be repatriated, rich or poor, officer or enlisted man they were all buried where
-
It was forty years ago today
It was not to be a summer like any other. Not for a 10 year old boy, who dreamed of space, and who was unabashedly a NASA nerd. Nothing had ever captured my attention like the space program, nothing. And to think that summer, the holidays between grades IV and V would actually see men
-
A pair of lines in my hands
Daisy was up from the battle school today but I missed him, I have not seen him for three weeks now, that is the longest spell since we joined up, or even before that for a couple of years. He left a snap of my team of greys that had been sent in one of
-
The big scrap
France, April 12, 1917 Dear Home Folks:- Just a few lines on this my birthday to let you know I came through the big scrap OK. I haven't time to write much but just want to say how glad I am. Louis came through alright too. Dan Holmes was wounded + I think Stewart McNicol
-
Gripping the nation – conclusion
Link to Part one. When Rev. Turner's wife opened the door her husband was lying on the ground, bleeding from his wound. Pregnant at the time, she carried him inside with the help of others who arrived upon hearing the commotion. He was laid on the kitchen floor, where he would stay for the next
-
Gripping the nation
Occasionally, especially in the pre-TV days when radio ruled, there were incidents that gripped the nation, and kept people gathered around waiting for the next report. The hunt for the Mad Trapper of Rat River was but one example of this. But a story from Arctic Bay also held southern Canada in its thrall. The
-
Slower than molasses in January
When I first stumbled on to the story of the 1919 Boston Molasses Flood I swore it was a joke. I mean surely a story about a wave of molasses travelling down streets, engulfing people, and animals couldn't be true. And in January! For crumb sakes, someone had to make that up. But no, ninety
-
Each a story
You get some sense of the scale of the enormity of it all when you walk through the cemeteries of Northern France. Row after row of white headstones and crosses, or the black ones of the German Cemeteries, interspersed with the headstones with the Star of David on them, or the large section of Muslim