Posted on 04/13/2025 8:02:28 AM PDT by DFG
Ninety per cent bored stiff, nine per cent frozen stiff and one per cent scared stiff.
That was - historian Andy Robertshaw insists - the experience of most soldiers in the First World War.
It was not one of constant fighting, never-ending trench foot and heartless aggression from commanding officers, despite the impression to the contrary given by most film depictions.
As for how I felt on a chilly but sunny day last week when I toured Andy's faithful reconstruction of a real British trench, I will let you decide from the pictures.
The trench dug in woodland at Detling Showground in Kent is very much not his first rodeo - there have been three other iterations, the first of which was in a field next to his back garden.
But his current one - which was dug in 2021 and is a reconstruction of a section of the line at Railway Wood at Ypres in Belgium that was operational between 1915 and 1917 - is by far the most extensive.
It is not just the trench that is an accurate reconstruction, my uniform and kit was too.
Sourced from Andy's own 'prop house', my shirt, tunic and trousers were - as their scratchiness attested to - woollen, whilst the vest was cotton.
Having politely declined the chance to replace my boxer shorts with cotton drawers (that's underpants to younger readers), I was then laden with kit, which altogether weighed around 70lbs (32kg).
The hefty webbing boasted a water bottle, a spade-like entrenching tool, bayonet, 150 rounds of ammunition and a haversack with the likes of mess tin, cooker, food rations, cutlery, comb and razor inside.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
So was The Lost Battalion.
No?! Off to the Tower with him!
Thanks to you and all who replied to my musings on this thread. Now, admittedly a non-sequiter; What’s become of Pookie’s Toons? I’ve not seen any here on FR for a week or more.
Our one daughter went to the WW1 memorials in France as part of a course in her freshman year at college. She has some amazing pictures of where the trenches were. She distinctly remembers the aura/vibe around the German memorial was dark and creepy.
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