Letter from Alfred Forbes Johnson to his wife Essie, 8th July 1918.
The land is covered in poppies and corn flowers and all sorts of wild flowers. It is very different from what it was like in the winter.
I went down to some sports yesterday. They tried to get me to run an officers obstacle race but when I saw the first obstacle, climbing up a 20ft rope to get over a pole, I decided my running days were over.
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Voices from 1918 has been developed by artists Sharon Hayden and Alastair Nisbet in partnership with Wimborne Community Theatre, Dorset History Centre and the Priest’s House Museum, Wimborne with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Thanks to all who have helped us with this project: Maria Gayton and staff at Dorset History Centre where we found Lady Mary Monkswell’s diaries; Joan Cocozza, ward of nursing auxiliary Olive Harcourt; Portland Museum where we found James Sansom’s diaries; the British Library and Wellcome Libraries; Priest’s House Museum in Wimborne and Gill Horitz from Wimborne Community Theatre.
We’ve used a new simpler type of blogging system which we beta tested for indie developer Janis Rondorf of Instacks software.
Posts created as simple text files are dropped into a folder on the webserver without the need for complicated formatting making it easy to upload material quickly.
We’re always happy to share more details about our work - email us using the link at the bottom of the page and we’ll get back to you.