The effects of the Great War were felt in every village – Telegraph Blogs

Friday 19 September 2014 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Douglas Carswell


The effects of the Great War were felt in every village

In a few days’ time we will be marking the hundredth anniversary of the First World War. On 4th August 1914, during a summer much like the one we are enjoying today, Britain went to war.  The impact of that conflict still echo down the generations.

I have often wondered how it could be that a conflict so long ago could exercise such a powerful a grip on our folk memory. I think I stumbled across a partial fragment of an answer in my own corner of Essex the other day.

Hanging on a barn wall at a farm shop in Beaumont village are two photos of the local quoit team – quoit being a throwing game.

In one, over a dozen proud men stare straight at the camera, erect in their Sunday best. It was taken shortly before the war.

In the second, there are half the number of men. It was taken shortly after the war.

It's not just that there are fewer men left in the village quoit team. Look at the difference in their bearing. They seem to hang together in a cluster. You can almost sense that something in the orderly rural village society has changed. Something massive and disruptive seems to lie between the two photos. Study the village war memorial, and you can see why.

It would have been the same in every village and town across the land.

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