Bertie - A Life in Letters - The Project.

My project, to publish the wartime letters of my grandfather, known to friends and family, as Bertie, started by accident after the death of my grandmother.

Inheriting two old, black, metal deed boxes was the start of a long path, meandering over twenty years.

Within the deed boxes lay old family letters from many generations, documents, certificates, diaries, photographs and an old rolled-up photograph, which I later learned to be a First World War panorama, taken during the Somme Offensive of 1916.

The project step by step

My first task was to sort out the large collection of artifacts into some kind of order. This took many months but the more letters I read, the more I became enthused with the project.

Letters from previous family generations, extending back to my great-great-grandfather, transported me back to long-forgotten times. My great-grandmother's diaries from the late 1880s took a lot of deciphering as all entries were in neat, controlled, handwritten copperplate script. The most immediately interesting letters were my grandfather's, kept safe, tied by a faded ribbon. These were his letters from The Great War. Other letters he wrote required sorting chronologically.

Once I had read the letters, I decided to photocopy them to avoid damage from constant use. I then needed to put them into the context of the time they were written to gain a greater understanding of the circumstances prevailing over a century ago. A long process of research followed.

At this time, during the 1980s, record systems were primitive. My research was undertaken via libraries, and museums by writing to institutions and visiting the National Archive, known as the Public Records Office at the time. Information was gleaned piecemeal, building gradually into a jigsaw-like picture, some areas clearly visible whilst other areas were obscure or opaque. I did not know where the boundaries of the jigsaw lay, making it difficult to see the whole picture clearly.

The breakthrough

The breakthrough came with the development of the internet and improved access to soldiers' war records. As we approached the centenary of the Great War, more documents were published for public access.

The picture became clearer; the edges of the jigsaw began to appear. I was able to fill in the borders with greater clarity only to discover that I had the pieces to several jigsaws, not just one.

As information fell into context covering two world wars, I had to rely upon the memory and sharp recall of my family members to transform bare factual detail into a three-dimensional weave.

I hope you find the book interesting. It shows life from a different era. I enjoyed the long process of writing it.