Tall Tales from the Trenches
Tall Tales from the Trenches
- 738 reads
Andy Simpson's medical
Conscription meant death. There was no glory or honour in it, no matter what the posters and papers said - the posters and papers were written by an...
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- 1829 reads
Eric Braithwaite’s Trousers
“Eric’s given his trousers a name,” someone joked the first time the name tag was spotted stitched into his trousers, by a mother clearly concerned...
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- 736 reads
Eric Campbell’s protruding leg
Many of the lads on the trenches become obsessed with the possibility of getting a ‘holiday wound’, a non-fatal injury serious enough to get them...
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- 594 reads
The Day Rick Hughes got religion
Rick Hughes was part of a unit of four troops sent to scout the remnants of a village that had just been captured. There wasn’t much of the village...
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- 839 reads
The doppelganger
The Trenches are full of tales of doppelgangers and identical twins separated at birth, most of them involving some poor Tommy finding out that the...
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- 380 reads
The pact
During our first week in the trenches, seven of us made a pact, when we died we’d each put in a good word for the others in heaven. We reasoned that...
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- 413 reads
Simon Jones’ vagina
There is gossip in the trenches, banter and gossip, then more banter and gossip, then some more plain old gossip. Shit, there ain’t much else to do...
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- 488 reads
Alan Johnson’s Enormous Penis
You find all sorts in the trenches. The other day I shared a billet with the Duke of Richmond’s pastry chef. Geff Torrence is a flag designer, Angel...
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- 1736 reads
Messy Joe’s bacon box lottery
When Eric Braithwaite died, he left a space on Thomas Bogle’s bacon box. Boxes are a much-sought thing in the trenches, the only thing coming between...
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- 473 reads
Leave to conceive
We all expected the war to be over quickly, with a handful of casualties, so those first few days in the trenches were a shock to all of us, those...
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- 660 reads
Phosphorous Pheobe and the luminous penis
Brian Hunter’s wife, Pheobe, worked in a factory, where she coated metal with phosphorous, so that it glowed luminous bright green in the dark...
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- 644 reads
The day Andy Jenkins shot himself
We’d been sent across the desert, an urgent mission to fetch an essential package from a camp a hundred miles away. The mission turned out to be a...
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- 725 reads
The poem
There is laughter to be had in the trenches, dark humour, perhaps, but you have to find the funny side of things else you’ll go mad. There’s hope too...
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- 893 reads
Last in the class
Jess Steed hated his teacher with a passion. Mr Birkenshaw was a fervent nationalist who had constantly lectured his class about their ‘duty to the...
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- 480 reads
John Tannerman and the German
John Tannerman had been separated from his platoon while he’d been laid up in hospital with the squirting arse disease that was ‘trending in the...
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- 566 reads
Paul Stott’s bed companion
We were passing through the countryside checking that the villages we passed through were safe. This can be dangerous work, with snippers and lone...
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- 1253 reads
The Snow Statue
The first time you wake up to an overnight snowfall in the trenches you can't help being overwhelmed by the sight. The beauty, the purity, so out of...
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- 1138 reads
Dick Reckless
Dick Reckless was one quarter German on his mother's side and spoke the language fluently. His mother had forced it on him as a child in the hope...
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- 572 reads
The biggest fight ever
It was the biggest fight ever, unless you count the war we'd been engaged in for the past four years. And it was the most pointless fight ever,...
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- 1565 reads
Karno's barmy army
Fred Karno's best comedians were in America when war broke out. Karno had hoped to break the American theatre market, but inadvertently sent over the...
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- 713 reads
David Wainwright’s Feet
David Wainwright’s Feet were enormous. His right foot was a size 16, his left a size 15. As a result, buying shoes was always difficult for him, but...
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- 183 reads