Manchester and the Great War, part two what to write about?

From Tomas "On Active Service", October 1916

“We have just heard H, is in Blighty.  But do not know which hospital.  Hope you are quite well, shall be glad to hear from you soon. Flo & E.”

Now if you wanted a short introduction to life during the Great War this is a pretty good start.*

Flo was writing to her brother Sid who was serving with the Canadian Army about Harold.

Like so much about any war communications were not always good and so Flo and Ethel had to wait for more news about where their brother Harold was in hospital.

Lord Kitchener's Appeal

For me it is also that use of the word “Blighty” which takes you right back to that conflict and sits alongside the recruitment poster announcing “Your Country Needs You” and those countless images of the mud, trenches battlefields of the Western Front coupled with the often savage war poetry and the poignant songs of the period.

So this should be a must for the book on Manchester and the Great War.**

Alas Sid, Harold, Flo and Ethel were born in Sussex and I suspect never visited Manchester.

That is no matter because I am now privy to a vast collection of Great War material courtesy of David Harrop, which includes picture post cards, letters, official communication and much more.***

Date unknown

And like always it is what to include.  The publishers have suggested a format which makes sense and follows a pattern adopted by other historians writing in the series about their towns and cities.

In all it is to be about 35,000 words long include 80 images, and divide up into six chapters covering the outbreak of the war, its impact on the civilian population and the aftermath.

But I always knew that it would be the original material that really wrote the book and as I sift through the postcards, letters and memorabilia the shape of the book and the stories it will feature are beginning to take form.

As ever amidst the great events are the little things that people still did despite a war.

There are postcards from holiday resorts, requests to help move house or sell something and the general round of trivia which vie with letters home from the Front, and mass of propaganda aimed at both the fighting men and the civilians.

All of which give a powerful insight into how people coped.

Trying to decide which of the saucy and comic postcards to include has been hard.  And it has been equally difficult to choose those which express the yearning to be reunited with a loved one.

To Nellie from George Davison, at Woolwich, October 1915

But some things jump out at you like the huge volume of correspondance from George Davison to his wife Nellie who lived in Hulme.

They include letters and picture postcards following his journey from Manchester to Woolwich and on to the Front.

His was not a happy ending and included in the collection are the official letters of condolence, and details of Mrs Davison’s war pension.

But there is much more including his birth and marriage certificates, school reports and news of his first job as well as his admission into the local working man’s club and details of his time with Territorials.

Date unknown

So this is where the material shapes the book because I rather think each chapter may contain at least one of Mr and Mrs Davison’s letters and postcards providing a vivid introduction to each chapter of Manchester and the Great War.

And the way these things work it will be impossible to draw a strict line between Manchester, and Salford, Stockport and the nearby towns of Ashton and Oldham and Rochdale, if only because some of those in the collection came from one, lived in another and worked across another municipal border.

The Davisons may have begun their married life in Hulme but during the course of the war she moved to Stockport.

Likewise David Harrop’s collection spans the country and while the book will not be finished for a while some of his postcards letters and memorabilia can be seen at two exhibitions during the summer.***

Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop

*Sidney James Luther, born in Surrey, served with the Canadian Army and died back in England aged just 34, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/sidney-james-luther-born-in-surrey.html

**Manchester, Remembering 1914-18 from the series, Great War Britain, The History Press, http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/catalogsearch/result/?order=relevance&dir=desc&q=the+story+of+chorlton

***David Harrop, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/David%20Harrop

****The Atkinson, Lord Street, Southport from July 28 and Oldham Archives, Union Street, Oldham, from August 4