They Shall Not Grow Old - Peter Jackson documentary on WW1

[Bellini12]

I was just wondering if anyone else watched this on BBC1 last night? It was quite long but I was totally mesmerised. I will admit to not knowing enough about WW1 and these real life accounts with the outstanding footage which brought the horror and futility of war to life was incredible. I was absolutely staggered. Bravo to Peter Jackson.

I've watched it several times hoping to see my granddad who lied about his age and joined up aged 16.

When the footage smoothes out and changes to colour I'm just blown away by how real it all becomes. Astonishing and moving.

@BMW6 Do you think you would recognise him? My grandad fought in his early 30s but, coming from a poor background, we have no photos of him as a young man. I often wonder if he is there and I just don't know him

He was one of the men who returned injured and was unable to return to his previous, physically demanding job. The family lived in poverty and, sometimes, on charitable handouts for many years afterwards and my mother remembers Nana telling how, after the war, she used to have to make him get out of bed and dress each day, give him little jobs to do to make him go out, etc. It must have been so hard for the women too

I did history A level and yet had no idea of the conditions these men were expected to live in. I’ve been thinking about the lad who died because he fell into the mud, it’s stayed with me.

We have my great grandfather's war journals, and I was always surprised by the humour in them. There are some truly harrowing passages, but in amongst it all there are stories of them falling about laughing (I remember one about racing rats!) and a sense that they were all in it together and had a real rapport. It was nice to see that reflected in the programme too.

Was reading more about Ypres and the mud, and found this:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/passchendaele-a-killing-field-of-mud-1.3091801%3fmode=amp

The final sentences are going to stick with me for a while.

A senior staff officer on finally visiting the battle field, towards the very end, burst into tears and asked his driver: “Did we send our men into that?” The answer was unwelcome, if unavoidable. Yes, they did.

How could they not have known?!

I've got a photograph of my grandfather when he joined up at the start of the war - he'd only been married for three years, and he and my grandmother had a small son. He looked eager and excited in his pristine uniform and neatly-wound puttees.

Then there's another photo he sent home in 1917. He's on his motorbike (he was a dispatch rider), outside the front of some French or Belgian church. Covered in mud, exhausted, unsmiling and hollow-eyed. You wouldn't know it was the same man.

I also found the transition to colour really shocking. I gasped. It just suddenly seemed so real. I kept thinking I was watching actors. I'm so glad they made this, it's incredible

It was extraordinarily good, wasn't it. I've been thinking a lot about the soldiers and others affected by WWI this last few days. I was very struck by the man who said he was walking down the street and some self-important woman came up to him and said 'Why aren't you in uniform?' He said he was 17 and she said 'Oh, we hear that a lot here!', implying he was a liar, and then she gave him a white feather, the mark of cowardice. Now, we could be charitable and say she had no idea what she was pushing him towards, but what gets into some people? Women like her and so many middle-aged and older people who weren't going to be fighting working so hard to induce young men and boys to go out and fight for a war that should never have happened.

Kipling lost his only son when he was killed on the battlefield six weeks after his 18th birthday. His father had pushed him to enlist, in spite of the fact that he was very shortsighted and had legitimately failed the medical for both the navy and the army.

Wilfred Owen was killed on 4th November 1918. His mother got the telegram while the bells were ringing out on 11th November to announce the Armistice. His poem Anthem for Doomed Youth was also very much in mind watching They Shall Not Grow Old. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47393/anthem-for-doomed-youth

My great uncle was killed on 19 oct 1918, we were told he was carrying some documentation to do with the arrangements for the armistice on a motorbike and was shot by a sniper. He was only 21.

We have photos and photos of my grandad who survived, but I don't think I'd have recognized them even if they were in it!

My great aunty's husband was also killed and she never remarried or had children which makes me really sad, and also makes me think I'm having children on her behalf.

My grandad who survived provided illustrations to a regimental magazine. Funny ones about the pubs in France etc and letters about snow and warm socks sent from home only arriving in sweltering summer heat. We have copies of the drawings he did there which are amazing.

Just watching this now and for the first 10 minutes of the coloured part I genuinely thought they were actors - I cannot believe the quality, especially the talking sections.

I am haunted by this documentary.
I can’t get over how much they came alive. The loss of almost an entire generation. My son is 18 and the thought of him and all his schoolfriends or Rugby team being lost in a war is hard to imagine. How could I imagine?

I’ve been reading Wilfred Owen today. His poem about the gassings has really stuck with me.

“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori

My great grandfather died in 1915; and was buried in his home town, so we can visit his grave. My great grandmother was left with 5 children, 2 of whom died within a couple of years of their father. My great aunt was married to a lovely man, Colin, and his younger brother Donald, died in 1916. We managed to find Donald’s grave on a excellent website and plan to visit next year.

It was a programme that lingers in the mind, and makes me feel very sad for the waste of those lives. We must remember, and carry on remembering for the next 100 years.