Description
Object description
Compilation of interviews with British civilians and service personnel about their experiences in Leicester and overseas in France, Mesopotamia and Gallipoli, 1914-1922 [Individual male and female speakers not identified]
Content description
REEL 1: Recollections of British civilians and service personnel about their experiences in Leicester and overseas in France, Mesopotamia and Gallipoli, 1914-1922: outbreak of war, 4/Aug/1914; troops leaving on trains; trains returning with wounded soldiers and German POWs; vicar organised distribution of cigarettes and oranges to wounded; price of cigarettes; base hospital and shopping for patients; posted to Dardanelles, 3/1915; bombardment; stayed for eight months; landings on beaches; description of troops disembarking from River Clyde; barbed wire under water; casualties; upbringing in non-conformist household and pacifist beliefs; propaganda and enlistment; role of women in war work; father enlisted 1916, mother worked in factory making flannel shirts; children looked after by aunt; problems of mother with five children while husband on active service; mother worked at Corah's; children looked after themselves preparing meals and collecting rations; eldest child up at 5am to queue for rations; rumours of Australian jam; collected meat ration on Saturday mornings; mother worked as caretaker at Shakespeare Street School, father on active service in Egypt and India; expectations of short war; mother gave up job at school because of stoking boiler; rationing and food queues; only porridge and water to eat; sister ill and prescription for bread and butter; comparison of conditions on home front during First and Second World Wars; aged seven when war ended; amusing story of chocolate cake; rumours and food queues; father in charge of meat ration; bad taste of first margarine; butcher made sausages from oil and grain; problem of food shortages; black bread; food queues in market place; food coupons and number of children; food substitutes including potato dripping; father home on leave received extra rations and preferential treatment in local shops; wore luminous button during blackout; description of Zeppelin raid; bomb dropped in the Rushes; windows blown in, telegraph wires brought down and mother trapped; fear of air raids; air raid occurred before blackout when town was lit up; death of young couple in air raid; bombs dropped in the Crown and Cushion yard and Empress Works; told that Zeppelins would never reach Midlands; grandmother born 1850, father went to India; initial excitement on enlistment but conditions in trenches made many not want to return; joined Royal Flying Corps in France, 1917; voyage on Belgian paddle steamer and problem of seasickness; dipped hard biscuits in tea made in bucket; no bread for several months; duties as gas officer; effects of being gassed with mustard gas; aircraft made in Birmingham Metropolitan Carriage Works; aerodromes usually only rough fields; description of takeoff; boys holding tail and each wing, chocs under wheels, started propeller by hand and danger; tested aircraft, circuits, looping the loop; oil cooled engines; stripped captured German aircraft for spare parts; Germans developed system of firing through propeller; soldiers in trenches used paper bags to write home on due to lack of paper.
REEL 2 Continues: father coming home on leave; submarine war; ships carried American troops instead of food supplies; fear of civil unrest due to food shortages and unemployment; mutinies among troops following end of war; joined Independent Labour Party because of unemployment; reaction to news of Armistice while in Mesopotamia, 11/1918; Armistice celebrations in Leicester; daily life in 1920s and sense of disillusionment; decline in church attendance; voted in France in the 'Khaki Election'; Labour candidate Walter Baker; story of Ramsay McDonald chased out of Leicester market place because of pacifist views; opinion of Lloyd George and 'land fit for heroes' promise; street parties to celebrate end of war; wounded soldiers at Hillcrest workhouse wore blue flannel uniform; wounded and Medway Street school and cases of shell shock; comparison of First and Second World Wars.