One family caught up in two world wars and the cards they sent home

Uncle Roger and mother, 1939

Judging by the huge loss of life and even greater casualties my family came out of the last two world wars almost unscathed.

Of the eight members of my immediate family we lost just one.

He was my uncle who died aged just 21 in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in 1943.

The rest which consisted of my great grandfather, grandfather, two great uncles and two uncles came through the Great War as did my mother in the Second World War.

I am less sure of my German family.  I know my grandmother’s brothers survived but the fate of her nephews are unknown to me.

My Uncle George, 1918

Not that I spend much time reflecting on this.  Of the eight, six were still very much alive as I was growing up and so you take them for granted.

Of course the shadow of my uncle Roger was always there in pictures and in occasional stories but my mother and grandparents rarely spoke of him and it is only recently that I have got to learn more about him and of course the loss that his death caused.

All of which makes both those conflicts more than a little remote.

And yet that is less so now because during the last month I have immersed myself in the postcards, letters and memorabilia of the First World War.

Most have come from the collection of David Harrop and are a moving testament to what people endured.

Almost all of them hint at stories that will now never be told and of lives as distant as those lived out centuries ago.

But you come away feeling it has been a privilege to share their experiences ranging from the happy to the sad and everything in between.

An embroidered card

Now none of what I am going to say is original but that said it is something I have personally uncovered from the letters and postcards.

And the over abiding emotion that comes through from the material is the stoic fortitude that those in uniform as well as those at home conducted themselves.

The correspondence is often short, lacks detail and at times is quite mundane, but then the space on the card to fill was small, often there were many distractions and most were intent on fostering a sense of normalcy.

But there is no hiding the affection, and love expressed over and over again, coupled with a real need for stories from home and news of the most routine things.

Now like many of my generation I was never very far from accounts of both world war but seldom came close to knowing how the “small people caught up in the great events” felt and until recently had never read their stories mixed with their hopes and fears and it has been a powerful experience.

So I am going to return to the occasional series which features the postcards of David Harrop.

The Manchester Regment

These are embroidered ones produced in France and sent home by the troops in specially made envelopes.  I have never come across them before although the style of card was being marketed both before and after the Great War.

According to one source those with the name of a regiment are quite rare today.

Sadly we have no such cards although the one sent by my uncle to my dad in the December of 1918 is fascinating but that as they say is for another time.

For now I shall just mention the two travelling exhibitions of David’s collections at Oldham and Southport during the summer and the permanent display in the Remembrance Hall at Southern Cemetery

Picture; of Roger Hall 1939 and George Bradford Simpson, 1918 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and embroidered cards from the collection of David Harrop

*David Harrop,