Captain Bruce Bairnsfather

Walking between meetings in London I was delighted to stumble upon this Blue Plaque in Sterling Street commemorating Bruce Bairnsfather.

Captain Bruce Bairnsfather was a prolific cartoonist who became famous during the First World War as creator of the character Old Bill and for his "Fragments from France" cartoons of life at the front. Bairnsfather drew from his own experiences. He had joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1914, serving with a machine gun unit in France until hospitalised with shell shock and hearing damage during the second battle of Ypres.

My own interest - apart from my grandfather being wounded at the same battle - is that Bairnsfather appears in my 'war walk' - one of the guided walks I run on the commons. At some point in 1915 or 1916 Bruce Bairnsfather must have been here because he drew a sketch depicting a wounded soldier on crutches with his arm on the shoulder of a young boy with one leg, also on crutches. In the background is the familiar windmill and yew tree. The drawing was turned into a postcard by the Chailey Heritage Craft School and subsequently appeared in a Heritage booklet called "Soldier Students: A Scheme of Educative Convalescence for the Wounded" published in May 1916.

Some say that Bairnsfather was instrumental in the allied victory because his cartoons helped keep up the morale of the troops.

In the second world war he was appointed as official cartoonist to the American forces.