Fact and Fiction

After a day of unremitting rain, I've just been watching the first episode of the new BBC serial, The Crimson Field. It's set in a field hospital in France for wounded (and dying) British soldiers during The Great War.

The subject matter sent me off to search out this picture of my grandfather whose 'blighty' wound sent him home to England. He is the man in the foreground - at the end of my thumb - in the convalescent hospital that he was moved to, and - if the serial writers and producers have done their research reliably - I'm guessing a lot pleasanter than the field hospital where he'd have been taken initially.

On the back of the photo (which is a post card format) he pencilled: "To Mother with love from Gordon ... Taken Sept. 1917"

Grandpa had a foot wound. (I still have the shrapnel that was removed from his foot.) The man standing right beside him in the trenches took the full hit and fell dead instantly. Had it been the other way round, I shouldn't be here writing this or sharing this photo. That poor generation! What a waste!