[Will Hunt]

I thought this recommendation warranted its own thread, rather than getting lost in the pages of the films or TV threads.

Available on iPlayer for another 6 days (till Saturday I think) is Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old. This is a WW1 documentary that is quite unlike anything else I've ever seen. Instead of talking head academics or museum curators, we have the voices (recorded for archive in the 60s I believe) of veterans telling of their experiences in the Great War. These are lain over archive footage which has been completely transformed.

The old black and white footage that was shot at the time always looks sped up and jerky (and frankly "unreal") because it was shot at a different frame rate to what we project at now. Often there are multiple frame rates on one reel of film. Jackson's team have painstakingly gone through this and "normalised" the frame rate to slow it down and smooth it out. They've coloured it too, and the effect is that it looks more "real" than anything from that era that I've seen before. A team of professional lip readers has then scrutinised the footage and the words that were spoken at the time have been voiced over the video.

The effect is astonishingly arresting. I've been to museums in the past where they have recreated a trench and a dugout, with the inevitable waxwork figures; and we've all seen plentiful black and white footage and photographs of trench warfare. For me, none of it compares to what you see in this film for actually conveying what it might have been like at the time. What's most poignant is how like us those young men were. It's obvious when you think about it, but when people are trapped motionless in black and white photos, it can be difficult to imagine their individual personalities, which is shown beautifully in the film.

It's an hour and a half, and there are some horrors in there, but there's plenty of light as well. For me, a lot of the official Remembrance stuff is a bit of a turn off. Quite religious in nature, a little jingo, some nationalism. This film really hit the spot.

[macca7]

Totally agree.

The effort that has gone in to producing this is quite unbelievable but finally does some kind of justice to what those unbelievably young men ("I'm 15 sir", "Well you best go outside and have a birthday!") gave during this period.

The sense of fun and adventure that a lot of them spoke about was really surprising and the fact they could sound so jovial whilst describing fellow soldiers being sucked into and drowning in a mud pit was surreal.

 Along with Will I would recommend it to anyone and feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to get a real sense of what life for these soldiers was all about.

Macca

[tommytwotone]

Great shout Will - for some reason I thought this was going to be a cinema-only release.

[Will Hunt]

The sense of fun and adventure that a lot of them spoke about was really surprising and the fact they could sound so jovial whilst describing fellow soldiers being sucked into and drowning in a mud pit was surreal.

Yes. Some of the real horror is dulled by the matter-of-fact delivery of the interviewees. I'm not sure if all the interviews would have been like that, maybe they were? Maybe it's just what 40-50 years does to your recollections of awful events. Maybe the people who couldn't calmly talk about "the whole first wave being wiped out" were never found to be in a fit state to interview.

I can imagine that the less emotional interviews could have been deliberately favoured to prevent the film from becoming a gruelling experience.

[cheque]

The old black and white footage that was shot at the time always looks sped up and jerky (and frankly "unreal") because it was shot at a different frame rate to what we project at now. Often there are multiple frame rates on one reel of film.

I imagine they had to crank it by hand?

[andy popp]

Bugger, iplayer doesn't work here.

I saw friends from many different countries sharing family stories of both world wars on FB yesterday. It was very moving. Zoe Brown (Joe's daughter) was sharing contemporaneous newspaper reports of well-known climbers getting caught up; for examples notices of the losses of both Siegfried Herford (WWI) and Colin Kirkus (WWII), which was a particularly interesting angle.

[SA Chris]

Started watching it last night, had my heart in my throat for a lot of it.

I've seen a load of films about it before, but this just seemed so much more real, the utter misery they had to endure, and did so unflinchingly.

I expect it will be made available elsewhere Andy.

[andy popp]

I expect it will be made available elsewhere Andy.

Hopefully, though probably not until the iplayer run has finished?

[SamT]

Isn't there a way of watching Iplayer abroad by using a VPN.

(he said sounding like he knew what he was on about, I wouldn't know where to start getting one to work mind).

[Oldmanmatt]

The sense of fun and adventure that a lot of them spoke about was really surprising and the fact they could sound so jovial whilst describing fellow soldiers being sucked into and drowning in a mud pit was surreal.

Yes. Some of the real horror is dulled by the matter-of-fact delivery of the interviewees. I'm not sure if all the interviews would have been like that, maybe they were? Maybe it's just what 40-50 years does to your recollections of awful events. Maybe the people who couldn't calmly talk about "the whole first wave being wiped out" were never found to be in a fit state to interview.

I can imagine that the less emotional interviews could have been deliberately favoured to prevent the film from becoming a gruelling experience.

I don’t know if it was the elapsed  time that dulled the edge, or the day-to-day reality of life in the early 20th century.

One of my Great Grandfathers, joined the Navy at age 8, in 1896 and finally retired in 1946. He was collected from his home by a uncle, who informed his mother and siblings that their father had been killed in action and took him (as the eldest) off to join up. He once told me he was given half an hour to pack and make his goodbyes. His uncle waited in the carriage, as he couldn’t stand the women’s wailing. On arrival at Greenwich, he along with the other new joiners, were thrown in a flooded dry dock, fully clothed, and made to swim across; with the staff stamping on the fingers of the children who tried to climb out on the wrong side.

My Grandfather, who came of age in 44 and just caught the end of the 2nd war; was born in Coventry. The son of a man who had been made destitute after being gassed in the Great War, he grew up in a single room, with one bed, thirteen brothers and sisters (3 of whom died before age five), supported by their mother taking in washing.

My Grandmother, daughter of the long serving Naval fella above, along with her sisters; went “into service” at age 12. Despite being from a relatively affluent family, it was considered “character building” before they settled down to married life (at 16). Her tales of daily beatings at the hands of the Housekeeper or Butler, were quite horrifying.

I think we simply lack the context to understand the “normal” conditions of their lives.
I think there was, possibly, more purpose to a death in the trenches; than dying in yet another accident down the pit, or crushed in the mill, or some disease we have all but forgotten.

My Great Grandfather died in 1982. He was a gunner and part of the Naval party in South Africa for that colonial jaunt, as well as later doing a six month rotation with the Naval artillery party in the trenches. He reckoned the trenches were better than the Veld and the ships of WW2 were like luxury liners, compared to his early days.

[Oldmanmatt]

My niece and nephew marched with their Great Great Grandfather’s gongs on Sunday. Three different Monarchs on those medals.

[Muenchener]

I read a fair bit of Wilfred Owen in my younger days, but Disabled was new to me yesterday and reduced me to tears.

I suppose now I'm fluent in German I *could* have a bash at All Quiet On The Western Front in the original too, but I'm not sure I can face it.

[andy popp]

Both of my grandfathers fought in WWI, a fact that still brings me up short when I think of it. My maternal grandfather was in the Royal Artillery and fought on the Somme, where he was also gassed. I knew him, but not well. He was a largely silent presence when we go to visit them in Harrogate, often locked away in a study or his bedroom. I thought little about it at the time, though I had a typical boy's fascination with war and loved to look at his medals (which were all campaign medals I think). I vaguely knew that my paternal grandfather had served in North Africa, but nothing more than that. When my father died this summer we found a small leather wallet belonging my grandfather. It contained a slim time describing his time in what was then Palestine, as well as three thumbnail photographs, I'm assuming of him, his girlfriend/fiancee and, perhaps, his mother. Alongside we found a photo album documenting the time in Palestine (spent being a tourist in Jerusalem) as well as more service oriented activities. From these my guess is he was in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was stationed in Egypt. I have no idea why I had never known of the existence of these objects. My father must have not wanted to share them with us, which I respect. The interesting thing about my paternal grandfather is that he was first generation British - his father having emigrated from Germany around 1870 (in fact, I've heard his father returned to Germany during the war, after decades in England).

[andy popp]

I suppose now I'm fluent in German I *could* have a bash at All Quiet On The Western Front in the original too, but I'm not sure I can face it.

Its very worthwhile. Much less well known but even better (in my opinion) is Under Fire by Henri Barbusse, giving a French perspective. This extremely harrowing novel, written from direct personal experience, was actually published during the war.

[SA Chris]

my Great Grandfather, who I was fortunate to know well as he died at age 97 or so when i was 14, fought on WW1, was shot in the shoulder and had it fused, so didn't fight any longer.

He had 3 sons all of whom of whom died in WW2. My grandfather was a flamethrower tank commander, and the German High Command hated these tanks so much that the order was given that any captured crew was shot. They eventually found his tank after it had lost a track returning from a battle  but there were never any bodies found, so it was presumed he was captured and shot.

The only thing I have of his is his swagger stick, covered in battered leather, which my mum has passed on to me. She remembers holding onto one end and him the other as they walked back to Sutton station when he was returning to war after a short pass to come home and see his family. She was about 6, she never saw him again.

If he hadn't had children so young (he was 28 when he died) I wouldn't exist. Neither of his brothers had any children.

[andy popp]

He had 3 sons all of whom of whom died in WW2. My grandfather was a flamethrower tank commander, and the German High Command hated these tanks so much that the order was given that any captured crew was shot. They eventually found his tank after it had lost a track returning from a battle  but there were never any bodies found, so it was presumed he was captured and shot.

The only thing I have of his is his swagger stick, covered in battered leather, which my mum has passed on to me. She remembers holding onto one end and him the other as they walked back to Sutton station when he was returning to war after a short pass to come home and see his family. She was about 6, she never saw him again.

What a sad story. The two men in the next generation of my family (my father and my maternal uncle - both were very small families) were both too young to fight in WWII

[tomtom]

My Grandfather, Leslie Frederick Burton signed up when the war started at the age of 17. He was part of the Stafforshire Regiment - and was packed off to the Somme. After one assault there he was one of four left out of 400 alive. He also took part in the Hohenzollen redoubt and the Passchendaele assault. in 1917 he was promoted to an officer - very young at 20, but there were so few men left. He was awarded the military medal and the military cross though there is no citation as for the reason. He did go to Buckingham palace and recieve his MC from King George. When my mum was clearing out his flat - she dsicovered a bullet with a dent in an envelope on which was written the bullet that saved my life. He suffered leg injuries and was also badly gassed at some point.

He married post war - became a police officer (eventually superintendent) and my mother was born in 1937. He was too old to serve in WW2, but in the closing months was dispatched to Berlin where he worked in a police capacity rounding up 'traitors and collaborators'.

He very rarely - if ever spoke about the war - much of the above was found out by  talking to his sister - who told tales of him coming back on leave riddled with lice - and how they would have to jump out of the trenches when swarms of rats came by but lie face down on the top in case the German snipers got them. He died when I was 16/17 (after a lengthy hospital stay after he broke his hip falling off a chair to change a light bulb..) and I knew him fairly well - but he was always distant and my mother had a difficult relationship with him. As a boy - often obsessed with tanks, guns and war (as boys can be) I would ask him about the war - and lots of things about tanks and guns but he never replied. Only in my adult years can I appreciate a little how hard that may have been for him. Sometimes he would make us salute or march though (in a fun way!).

Like with Chris - I'm only here via the smallest of margins....

[andy popp]

he was always distant and my mother had a difficult relationship with him.

I think the same was true of my maternal grandfather. My mum always described him as "Victorian." Whilst that was literally true in terms of his D.O.B that wasn't really what she meant.

[webbo]

I never ever saw my maternal grandad not wearing a suit, even on the beach at Scarborough. He served in the First World War despite suffering from severe epilepsy. My Nan never knew he had it when they got married.
Like a lot of families nothing got discussed other than on my dads side one of his uncles was so traumatised that he used stand on the streets of Leeds preaching against the evils of the world after he came back from the trenches.

[Oldmanmatt]

I never ever saw my maternal grandad not wearing a suit, even on the beach at Scarborough. He served in the First World War despite suffering from severe epilepsy. My Nan never knew he had it when they got married.
Like a lot of families nothing got discussed other than on my dads side one of his uncles was so traumatised that he used stand on the streets of Leeds preaching against the evils of the world after he came back from the trenches.

Things like that were not so uncommon, when I was a little boy.
My dad’s uncle had been a Chindit. He couldn’t sleep indoors, even into the seventies, sleeping under a canvas awning in the back garden.

My next door neighbors, growing up, were relations by marriage (small village) and we called them Gran and Grampy. We would sit with them, after school, waiting for my mum to finish work. Gran was always good for a Fox’s Glacier mint or a Humbug. Except when Grampy had his “moments”, when he’d stay in his room for a couple days. We knew it was “from the war” (first for him, he was over forty when the second started), but everyone just shrugged it off. If you met someone like that now, you’d find it pretty disconcerting.

Grandad Pearse (the long serving Navy one I mentioned before), was a PO Gunner, at Jutland. His ship was sunk, he was rescued, put on the guns of the ship that picked him up. Sunk again, rescued again and that ship sank too. All within the space of four hours or so.
He was landed back in Plymouth and put on a train home to Buckfastleigh, with a 48hr pass, to “recover”. His family put him on a train back, two days later. He didn’t make it back to the dockyard. The police picked him up, wandering around, catatonic, in Plymouth town centre. Couldn’t remember his own name. They gave him two weeks on a convalescent ward in Stonehouse, then he went back to sea.

[Will Hunt]

Except when Grampy had his “moments”

These stiff upper lip euphemisms always get me. Not a war story, but I remember listening to Alan Bennett's Talking Heads while driving from El Chorro to Madrid. This at times brought me to the brink of tears. There's a bit in it where his mother has been taken into a mental health hospital, his ageing father not able to cope with her anymore. It's desperately sad. The father refers to the mother's condition only as "this flaming carry on". You got the impression that the four horsemen of the apocalypse could have ridden over the horizon to begin judgement day and it would have been nothing more than a "flaming carry on".

[spidermonkey09]

Personal favourite bits of WW1 poetry are Survivors by Sassoon and Strange Meeting by Owen. Survivors is more confronting and perhaps more immediately evocative but Strange Meeting has so much going for it just below the surface. Brilliant.

https://www.bartleby.com/136/32.html

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47395/strange-meeting

[andy popp]

https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1058682704332447745?fbclid=IwAR0CbMBf59DuPk4IyV875zYcQHPM8YGx14lEGajfepn9ZOcJ1BA-w9kClYA

[Oldmanmatt]

My paternal grandfather was killed by artillery or machine gun fire (accounts vary) in September 1918. He had moved to Canada ten years before, established a farm and law practise in rural Alberta, married my grandmother and had two sons but perceived it as his duty to go back to Europe to fight. My father was just 4 when his father died. In turn, he was 50 when I was born and died of myeloma when I was 25. When I pause to think about it, which I do quite often, I astonishes me how much years have been straddled by just three generations and how tenuous the passing of the baton between us has been.

I think this is the most incredible part about such recollections.

I know my Great Grandfather, who I knew and listened to his tales, had been a boy at Greenwich school; under the care of an ancient Mariner block Chief (a sinecure in his dotage) who had been born on the Victory and was at Trafalgar.
So I knew a man, who knew a man, who was at Trafalgar...

Nuts!
And somwhere in the middle of all that, came the Crimea, the US Civil war, the Boer War, Boxer rebellion and so many other things that seem so far removed from me and now; but really only happen within a couple of life times.

Makes my head spin.

[duncan]

Another strong recommendation for this. Almost the most poignant moment was the indifference the soldiers reported receiving on return. This puzzled me as the usual explanation for Britain's appeasement of Hitler 1936-1938 was the desire to avoid another European war at all costs after of the cataclysmic impact WW1 had had on the country. Perhaps the indifference is another example of 'lets not talk about it'.

[the following from FB, apologies if you've read it already]
My paternal grandfather was a stoker in the Royal Navy before, during, and after WW1. Family legend has it he saw action at Jutland but he died well before I was born and I sensed even my Dad and Grandma didn't know many details.

I've a slightly better idea of what my Dad got up to. I recently applied for an Arctic Star, the medal for Russian convoy veterans, on his behalf. He is unfortunately no longer around to collect it himself. He spent 1944-45 as a radar operator on HMS Nairana hunting, and being hunted by, German submarines north of Norway.

The Nairana was an escort carrier, a converted merchant ship, tiny compared with modern carriers. They were unarmoured: one well-placed bomb or torpedo and down they went. The Nairana saw combat on several occasions. On the 9th December 1944 it was attacked off the Kola Peninsula. Hurricane fighters shot down two bombers and two U-boats were sunk by other convoy ships.

HMS Nairana, middle distance. Imagine trying to land a plane on that

Dad flew in a Fairey Swordfish, a sluggish and heavy biplane. These were obsolete in 1939 and ancient history by 1944. They would have been sitting ducks to any contemporary fighter plane but fortunately there weren't many left in northern Norway by then. Swordfishes were still flown on the convoys because their low speed meant they were just able to land on Nairana’s small, unstable deck without overshooting into the sea. There are still numerous reports of them crash-landing or missing the deck completely. You were dead after 2 minutes in the Arctic water. Because of the high latitude most of the winter flying was in the dark, the crew would have been entirely depended on my Dad’s skills as radar operator.

This is quite incredible to me from the comfort of 2018. I really wished I knew more about this and other parts of my Dad’s youth but neither of us were very old when he died. He probably talked with me more than most but it still wasn’t much. That's my main point really. Talk with your Dad if he is still around, especially if he’s not particularly chatty.

[sxrxg]

Talk with your Dad if he is still around, especially if he’s not particularly chatty.

This 100%. Whilst my dad was born after the war and so the stories would have been different I never really got around to talking to him properly about when he was younger before he died of cancer, feel like I have missed out on some brilliant tales that could be told.

If one person reading this gets one story from their dad after this post it will be worth it.



Also I watched the documentary last night after seeing this thread and can confirm that it is brilliant. The bit that really got me was when they knew the war was over yet kept shelling right up until 11am. Shows the total folly of it.

[andy popp]

What an extraordinary thread this has turned into. Thanks to Will for starting it and to everyone who has contributed their family stories.

[Will Hunt]

My paternal grandfather was killed by artillery or machine gun fire (accounts vary) in September 1918. He had moved to Canada ten years before, established a farm and law practise in rural Alberta, married my grandmother and had two sons but perceived it as his duty to go back to Europe to fight. My father was just 4 when his father died. In turn, he was 50 when I was born and died of myeloma when I was 25. When I pause to think about it, which I do quite often, I astonishes me how much years have been straddled by just three generations and how tenuous the passing of the baton between us has been.

I think this is the most incredible part about such recollections.

I know my Great Grandfather, who I knew and listened to his tales, had been a boy at Greenwich school; under the care of an ancient Mariner block Chief (a sinecure in his dotage) who had been born on the Victory and was at Trafalgar.
So I knew a man, who knew a man, who was at Trafalgar...

Nuts!
And somwhere in the middle of all that, came the Crimea, the US Civil war, the Boer War, Boxer rebellion and so many other things that seem so far removed from me and now; but really only happen within a couple of life times.

Makes my head spin.

This is such a brilliant thread. The two degrees of separation to Trafalgar is utterly cosmic.

It's only since I've become a dad that this happens, but when I look at my little girl and think about the canvas of time stretching out in front of her; thinking about her in the year 2100 at age 83; likely a grandmother; perhaps even a great grandmother; a grandmother to whom and in what world - it gives me that same feeling of being adrift in the Pacific that you get when you start to wonder about the vastness of space.

[Andy F]

Chatting with my dad recently he mentioned his dad fought with Monty in North Africa and his grandfather was in the trenches. He said neither of them talked about their experiences. His said his grandfather was always distant, his dad less so. I was only young when my grandfather passed, but I still remember him being somewhat cold. To go from tripe dressing in Yorkshire to the front line must leave very deep scars on the psyche. I hope my son's never have to face such horrors.

And I'm not talking about the tripe dressing...

[Will Hunt]

For anybody who enjoyed the film, Peter Jackson has done a podcast where he talks a bit about the brief they were give by the Imperial War Museum and how they went about colourisation, sound etc.

https://www.recode.net/2018/12/15/18141509/peter-jackson-wwi-world-war-they-shall-not-grow-old-documentary-kara-swisher-recode-decode-podcast