HARRISON, SYDNEY

Sydney wrote letters home on a regular basis and, fortunately, his family has kept them. His letters and postcards give a poignant insight into his thoughts throughout his period of training and life at the front-line.

He was an uncomplicated country boy who had no wish to be a soldier. Letters that he sent during his basic training made it clear that he did not intend to be sent to the front if he could help it. When reading his letters, it is striking to see how his experiences during his training and service in the front-line matured him very quickly.

When he first left home he was very dependent upon his parents and he regularly asked him to send things to him. He had been used to having his bed made for him, and he sent his handkerchiefs home from the training camp for his mother to wash for him.

Sid found the training at Brocton Camp difficult and his letters give a detailed insight into his thoughts throughout the process. As the time passes, his letters let us watch him being hardened-up and share his frustration at being  denied home leave for months on end. In one letter this frustration resulted in him boiling over and describing his officers as ‘damed rotters’.

In his letters we can read about the painful swelling the size of an egg, that he developed after being vaccinated, the hardship of the long route marches, being cold at night, and the fact that they ‘just had to get on with it’ when they slipped, fell and hurt themselves on the ice on the parade ground. No doubt his mother will have shed more than one tear when reading these letters.

By the time he had completed his training and become a ‘fully fledged soldier’ he had grown-up considerably and he told his parents that he was no longer as ‘soft’ as he had been before. He was also showing his parents more consideration and telling them that he had come to appreciate his home more. He had also come to terms with the fact that he was to be given no choice about going to the front, and he even told them that he would go with a good heart.

When he turned 19, Sydney became eligible for service abroad and was sent to the Western Front. Barely a year later he lost his life in the 1918 Spring offensives.

Many of Sidney’s letters are full of homesickness, love and concern for his family, and his thoughts of the future. Throughout his time away from home he very evidently longed to be allowed to come home again to live with his family and help his father with the garden.

Initially, his letters from the front were full of hope that he would survive the war and they tell us that he was looking forward to the day when he could come home and ride round the lanes of Marchington on his father’s bicycle.

As the war progressed, Sid’s letters described his experiences in the trenches, his being gassed and his being taken into hospital with pains in his head and legs. He described the front line as ‘hell with the lid off’ and spoke about the conditions there, including the lice and the mud, for which the Western Front has become famous.

Towards the end of his time at the front, Sid’s mood changed. He started to refer to God more often in his correspondence and started to say that he wished that ‘this damn war’ could end. He also started to acknowledge the fact that he may not make it home, and he often expressed a hope that he would be spared to come home to those he loved.

By the time he wrote his final letters from the front-line, scarcely a year later, Sydney had become a very mature and thoughtful young man. When reading these final letters it is easy to forget that he was still only 19 years old. He regularly expressed concern about the wellbeing of his younger brother and sisters, and was evidently thinking about the hardship which his parents were enduring in keeping the family going and supplying him with parcels.

Sid went missing during the 1918 Spring Offensives, and his parents had to endure many anxious months before they finally received official confirmation that he had been killed. Some of the letters which his mother sent to him have also survived, because they were returned to her when Sid went missing. Initially a mood of general concern comes through, but as time goes on the anxiety in her letters becomes more and more evident. Her final two letters are particularly heartrending to read because they finish with the words ‘God bless you, Sid, and spare you for us’ By the time she wrote these words, Sid was already dead.

During this time his parents will have clung to hopes that he might have been taken prisoner, because the local newspaper had reported a number of cases where men had been reported missing, presumed killed, and had turned up later in Prisoner of War Camps later. There had even been a case of a man arriving home after his family had received official notification of his death.

Sid’s parents made enquiries to the regiment and the Red Cross to find out what exactly had happened to him, and this correspondence has also survived. It paints a vivid picture of the frustration experienced by all families who lost their sons in such circumstances. When reading some of the letters which they received from officialdom, one is struck by the strong tone of indifference which comes through.

They also kept the letters of sympathy which they received from friends and family.

Taken together, therefore, these letters and documents allow us to reconstruct Sydney’s story from the point at which he left school to the day on which his parents finally received his medals, a full two years after his death.

This article will be continued in due course.