The notebook on Una Barrie's living-room table will soon be 100 years old. Not much bigger than a cigarette case, it belonged to her father Bernard, a bank employee who crept through the trenches in Flanders as a signaller for the British army during World War I. The war has faded into the past, but now her father's field diary suddenly has a great appeal for Barrie, née Brookes.
The family possesses nine of the small notebooks, and for decades they were kept in a cabinet in her brother's house. But the 80-year-old woman recently decided to turn the diaries into a book, complete with footnotes and images. The book, "A Signaller's War," is her contribution to the 100th anniversary of the war's beginning.
The book and how it came about are illustrative of how the British remember the "Great War." They are proud of their ancestors and their victory over the Germans, although they prefer to avoid triumphalism. For them, the four years that began in 1914 are an important chapter in the glorious past of the British Empire.
Barrie, who lives in Purley, a half-hour train ride south of London, is a vigorous woman who laughs easily and often. Her brother Bobby, 84, and her husband John, 82, are sitting next to her. All three are still familiar with World War I from the stories they heard firsthand from the soldiers of the day. "Our father also had a lot of fun in Belgium too. It wasn't all destruction," says Barrie.
Read Full Article »