I was on Facebook today and came across a post from my old university college. Unbeknown to me, it turns out that New College, Oxford actually looked after convalescent servicemen and septicemia cases during the Great War. These men were sent to the college from the military hospital that had been established in the Examinations School on the High Street (where my Historian friends and I sat our dreaded Finals exams).
Tag Archives: great war
One Of My Favourite Love Letters From The Great War
This is one of my favourite love letters from the First World War. Its author is one George Hayman, a private in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and he wrote it to his wife shortly before he left for France in June 1916.
The letter, as you can see, is written in the shape of a kiss and also contains drawings George made himself of his young family. In one part he writes “I only wish I could be home with you, still never mind this war will soon be over now. Then we will have a jolly good time” and he signs off “from your loving boy, George xxxx”. The innocence and obvious adoration George felt for his wife and their child is so lovely – making it all the more heartbreaking that George died in combat two months later.
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