Letter To An Unknown Soldier: A New Kind of War Memorial. Kate Pullinger

of what he went through. Having served in the Boer War in South Africa he went off to fight again in 1915 in the Gallipoli Campaign. Although he was seriously injured fighting overseas he fortunately survived to be repatriated to the UK and to live to a good age.

      So Tom I can imagine what you may have gone through. But unfortunately you didn’t have the chance to see your grandson, like my grandfather did. So I’d just like to say to you, thank you for sacrificing your life for my generation to be able to live in peace. I and very many more people will always be eternally grateful to you and the many millions of your comrades who gave up so much.

      Tom, as I am now retired, I may not be passing you at Paddington Station very often these days, but I will never ever forget you as a great bloke and a very brave soldier.

      Thank you Tom and God Bless You.

      John Owen

      68, Grantham, British Transport Police History Group, Retired

       Letter from the Unknown Soldier

      I am not able to write adequately about the people and the country of France. Whatever one sees is different from our Punjab villages. They have here pleasant gardens, houses made from bricks, roads and carriages. The soil is beautiful, corn or roses would grow quickly if planted.

      We are treated well and given blankets and food, even a scarf which I am now wearing to help me fight the cold weather. The bread is like a baton which is hard on the outside and soft in the middle, it is acceptable. We are eating of the salt of the King and loyalty becomes us.

      Yet all around us are scenes from the wars in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. So I take heart from your words, that Time is ruled by God, that my breath is in God’s will. But how I grieve for you, for all at home, that the plague is spreading. You are ever before my eyes. What more can I say.

       Letter to the Unknown Soldier

      How strange to receive your letter written not in Punjabi but in English. And here I am writing in foreign. Our reader and writer is a kind Brahmin in town who charges little. I have to tell you, it is true, as you must have heard from the other soldiers, the plague has come like a scythe to corn and is spreading from village to village for its grim crop! We remain safe and have turned to the snake priest who sprinkles the houses with fire to ward off evil; we make daily puja at his shrine. Dear husband, remember God is everywhere, his will is in the drinking water which becomes holy when you drink it with a prayer.

      The rains have come so do not worry for the crops. The cow is giving milk and we have a good store of corn. I hope you are being treated well, that you are given our food and that foreign is green with mountain water as we have it here. The name of the German is breathed like that of the demon Harankash. There are rumours he is coming to Punjab but we know the King will send him packing.

      How soon married, how soon we have been parted. I must not forget your smile and your always kind words. My husband, fight like a man and come home a hero with the shadow of God in your stride. What more can I say.

      Daljit Nagra

      Harrow, Writer

      Dear Boy

      I can’t stop thinking about you as you head off for the great adventure in France. You look very marvellous in your uniform: it is funny how a uniform turns a boy into a man so quickly.

      I just wanted to say goodbye properly before you leave on the train, to remind you that even though you are excited now, things will change; and sometimes you will feel very wretched and frightened and not bright and happy as you were when the train pulled out of the station and you were all singing and waving your caps.

      Always remember that you must take care of your friends and mates who will be having a rough time as well: try to keep your spirits up, even when it looks darker than hell. I don’t know how sorely you will be tested but at all times be as brave and kind as can be. I have put some cough lozenges in your kitbag and a vest for when it is cold. Remember to read, as that will take your mind off the guns. Look out for birds and flowers, as they are the signs that in the end all will be well; and if you meet local people please be polite (Bonjour, merci, au revoir).

      Will you write to me? Writing is like an escape, and that is why I am writing this now, as I think that if I saw you I would cry my eyes out at having to say goodbye.

      I don’t know what will happen, but every day and every moment I will be thinking of you, my Boy.

      Come back safely xxxx

      Your loving mother

      Joanna Lumley

      Actor

      I wanted to express my gratitude … is what I find myself writing from habit. I’m not sure gratitude is the right word, because I’m not too sure I’m for the war, or any war for that matter.

      And I’m not sure whether you’re out there by choice or by duty or if the two can ever be intertwined. I could talk about home or ask you what it is like out there, in the mud and the cold and the rain. I could talk about the women down the road sewing as if it will mend everything, or about my widowed neighbour who stares forlornly at the forget-me-nots in her garden and no longer speaks, not even to the milkman. But I don’t think these trivialities will put light in your heart and it is light in your heart that might pull you through the struggles that arrive with each new day. So I will tell you a story with the aim of spiriting you away to a gentle place …

      After a while all the cold mud grows warmer, and the air hot. Rainforest plants appear, thick and moist and green, and they open to a lake from which steam rises. All around birds of paradise sing.

      The butterflies float iridescent in the humidity and the bright tree frogs gaze longingly at the flies. A beautiful person swims there, in the lake, every day, at the foot of a ramshackle jetty which rises from the door of a house made of reeds to the bank. This ethereal being kisses the water as it flows past their nakedness. Time subsides. Reaching the bank, they raise their body glistening from the water, drawing their legs up to their chest. And then their eyes, like other fantastical worlds, invite you to join them, as temptation stretches out across the sand, waiting.

      Sophie Collard

      27, London, Writer

      Darling

      I don’t know if you’ll ever get this letter but I had to write it anyway.

      Sorry for any spelling mistakes. You know I’m writing this quick and urgent as I need to catch the postman, and you know spelling was never my strongest was it, not never in school. But Roddy. I have to tell you, in case – well I can’t write it here – but you know what I’m thinking. I have to write so that I can think of you over there, with my words tucked up in your pocket next to your heart.

      Of course your wife will write you too, going on about the boys and the socks she’s knitting and stuff like that. Everyone else is allowed to write you. Your mum. Jenny, Nanna. Everyone except me. But you know, don’t you, things I can’t never say? I have to say them. Otherwise my heart is going to crack right open like a walnut shell.

      That day you left. The line you was in with the others – you remember me running alongside, and then stopping when I saw Alice. I was trying to tell you. Something I think you’ve guessed. And whatever happens, whatever – I won’t never get over you and I won’t never find another man if you don’t come back and I don’t care what anyone says about war and fighting but what we did was real too wasn’t it, what we did matters? It was true and ours, and it’s the only thing that matters in this world really isn’t it? It’s the only thing that lasts, that can save us – Roddy, darling, I have to tell you!

      You’re a good man Roddy. I know you was scared that night and lonely and you wasn’t thinking about Alice and you didn’t mean to hurt no one it was just a long time we’d loved each other and not given in to it, wasn’t it, all those years in school and that, but for me it wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t a mistake, no, and it wasn’t the war neither. It was the most special thing I’ve ever done. It will always be that to me. So Roddy,