A Tommy S Life In The Trenches

A unique visual perspective of life in the trenches on the Western Front from the forgotten soldier-artist and Somme veteran Private Fergus Mackain who served in France 1916 to 1917.

Trenches to Trams is a vivid social and military history bringing to life the story of an ordinary Bristolian who experienced extraordinary times. George Pine was one of four brothers from Easton who all fought in the First World War. George was awarded the DCM for gallantry and was injured three times while serving with the Gloucestershire Regiment. He experienced the horrors of the Somme and Passchendaele. With gunshot wounds to the head and shoulder George was left for dead on the battlefield but miraculously found his way back to the British Lines. With his army career over, he partially recovered from his injuries at Beaufort War Hospital in Bristol and in 1920 managed to get a job as a conductor on Bristol's Trams. He experienced the changeover from trams to buses in the 1930s and survived several close shaves during the Blitz. He retired in 1956. At the request of his grandson, George jotted down 44,000 words of memories in the eight months before he died in 1972. George's story has been painstakingly researched by Clive Burlton who has uncovered hundreds of photographs and objects from family, public and private sources and added extensive Author's Notes. Trenches to Trams is an invaluable social history of a working class Bristolian who lived through two World Wars. It contains more than 200 archive images most of them never previously published.

The First World War has left an almost indelible mark on history, with battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele becoming watchwords for suffering unsurpassed. The dreadful fighting on the Western Front, and elsewhere in the world, remains vivid in the public imagination. Over the years dozens of books have been published dealing with the soldier's experience, the military history and the weapons and vehicles of the war, but there has been little devoted to the objects associated with those hard years in the trenches. This book (new in paperback) redresses that balance. With hundreds of carefully captioned photographs of items that would have been part of the everyday life for the British Tommy; from recruiting posters, uniforms and entrenching equipment to games, postcards and pieces of 'trench art', this book brings to life the experience of the Great War soldier through the objects with which he would have been surrounded.

The extraordinary and moving story of a man, now aged 108, whose life has spanned six monarchs and twenty Prime Ministers .

Cady Hoyte, like many other young lads of his generation, proudly joined the army in 1915 to fight for his King and Country. From the Warwickshire town of Nuneaton, he joined the Warwickshire Yeomanry as a gunner in the Machine Gun Corps and quickly found that army life made no concessions for an eager young 19 year old. Never having ridden a horse before, he develops a relationship with the horses, which made it all the harder when he had to say farewell and leave them behind to sail aboard the stricken ship, the Leasowe Castle, to fight in the trenches of France. Written with humour, Cady's diary gives a detailed account of the daily struggles and constant dangers of army life in the First World War without ever losing sight of his respect for human life.

The trench was the frontline Tommy’s home. He lived, ate, slept, and sometimes died in this narrow passage amongst the slime of mud and blood on the Western Front. His washbasin was a mess-tin, his cooker – a small fire built into the wall, his entertainment – his friends, his fear – the man living in the trench on the other side of No Man’s Land. Over 6 million men died whilst serving in the trenches – how did they live in them? For the first time, World War I historian Andrew Robertshaw and a group of soldiers, archaeologists and historians use official manuals and diaries to build a real trench system and live in it for 24 hours, recreating the frontline Tommy’s daily existence, answering the questions: How do you build a trench quietly?How clean can you really get in a trench? How easy is it to sleep? How do you keep yourself entertained?How to do you stay alive and kill the enemy?And many more...Hour-by-hour, the Tommy’s day unfolds through stunning colour photographs in this ground-breaking experiment in Great War history.

Postcards sent by men on the front, and to them by their families, are among the most numerous, and most telling, surviving artefacts of the Great War. They tell us much about attitudes towards the war, and provide a great insight into men's lives, and into the thoughts and emotions of those left behind. Very different in their illustration, and in their writing, between the beginning of the war and the end, postcards provide a social history of the war in microcosm. Illustrated with a wide range of postcards, this is a fascinating look into the response of the British people to the horrors of the war.

During the Great War millions of men lived in the trenches of the Western Frotn. It is difficult for us to understand how they coped in such a confined space with the constant terror of enemy attack. Now, Andy Robertshaw and a group of soldiers, archaeologists and historians use official manuals and diaries to recreate their daily lives.