‘How It Feels To Be Shot’

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Magicfingers

‘Then there came a crash. It sounded to me like someone had dropped a glass bottle into a porcelain bathtub. A barrel of whitewash tipped over and it seemed that everything in the world turned white.’  Continue reading →

Posted in 1918 - The Allied Advance East, Soldiers | 6 Comments

Arras – London Cemetery, Neuville Vitasse

Posted on January 6, 2023 by Magicfingers

How about we start the New Year with a random cemetery visit?  I happened to find myself here last summer, at this burial ground a few miles south east of Arras – I’ll show you a map in a while – and peering over the boundary wall (the cemetery entrance on the far right), that looks an interesting layout, does it not?  Continue reading →

Posted in Arras, World War II | 18 Comments

The Men Who Came Home – A Memorial Part Fourteen – The Middlesex Regiment

Posted on January 1, 2023 by Magicfingers

Men of the Middlesex Regiment, three privates and a lance corporal, later in life.  Continue reading →

Posted in Soldiers | 4 Comments

The Men Who Came Home – A Memorial Part Thirteen – The London Regiment

Posted on December 28, 2022 by Magicfingers

London Scottish troops waiting for a train, somewhere in France, 1914.  How many of these men would survive the war unscathed, I wonder?  Continue reading →

Posted in Soldiers | 10 Comments

The Men Who Came Home – A Memorial Part Twelve – The Canadian Expeditionary Force

Posted on December 18, 2022 by Magicfingers

A continuation of another sometime series, where we meet a few of those who served – seven of the eight men in this post fought with the Canadian Expeditionary Force – and were lucky enough, although you’d have to have asked them for confirmation of that, to survive their Great War experience, only to suffer later ailments necessitating hospitalisation.  Continue reading →

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Great War Postcards No. 62

Posted on December 9, 2022 by Magicfingers

‘The Lucky Charm of the Allies.’  Continue reading →

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Great War Postcards No. 61

Posted on December 5, 2022 by Magicfingers

‘A call roars like thunder, like the clash of swords and the pounding of waves’, or some such nonsense.  You might remember that back in March 2020, as we all locked down for the first time, I began a series of posts, in daily, and later weekly, form, that featured examples from my Great War postcard collection.  Continue reading →

Posted in Postcards | 6 Comments