‘Mother Dear... remember me in your prayer'

A mammoth new work recounting the First World War, week by week, isn’t merely a chronicle of pain and suffering, says co-author Margaret-Louise O’Keeffe–it is a rich tapestry of courage, camaraderie and love

- Margaret-Louise O'Keeffe

ON October 29, 1918, 22-year-old Gunner Ned Parfett, who had been awarded the Military Medal (MM) and mentioned in dispatches, was collecting clothes before going home on leave. A stray shell hit the quartermaster’s stores and he was killed instantly. His face was famous worldwide as the newsboy carrying the placard about the sinking of RMS Titanic, during which an estimated 1,517 people were lost. However, what was headlined a ‘GREAT LOSS OF LIFE’ in 1912 would pale into relative insignificance in view of what was to come.

On July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, there were 57,470 British casualties. Of these, 19,240 were killed, most during the opening assault. These devastating numbers indicate the scale of death and injury caused by the First World War. All such statistics represent individuals who, in the words of Canadian medical officer John McCrae, ‘short days ago… felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved’. As We Were sets out to tell their stories.

The inspiration for As We Were came from Robert Cottrell, editor of the online journal The Browser, who, in the summer of 2014, asked David Hargreaves to produce a weekly account of what had happened 100 years before, to mark the centenary of the First World War. I became the researcher and David wrote the essays, which were published initially on The Browser’s site and then at www.centuryjournal.com.