Y9: Poetry From & About WW1

Life in the Trenches – The Importance of the Penny Post

1. Get Thinking

What is this?

Why might is be an important artefact?

What connection might it have to WW?

2. Letters from the front line.

Dear father... They have been teaching us bayonet fighting today and I can tell you it makes your arms ache. I think with this hard training they will either make a man of me or kill me... From your loving son, Ted

( Edward John Poole was killed in action two months later aged 18)

My own beloved wife... I do not know how to start this letter. The circumstances are different from any under which I ever wrote before... We are going over the top this afternoon and only God in Heaven knows who will come out of it alive... If I am called my regret is that I leave you and my bairns... Oh! How I love you all and as I sit here waiting I wonder what you are doing at home. I

How do you feel having read these letters?

Why might letters and post have been so important during WW1?

Having watched the expert, add some ideas to your CAF about the importance of post during WW1.

3. Read All About It

My own beloved wife... I do not know how to start this letter. The circumstances are different from any under which I ever wrote before... We are going over the top this afternoon and only God in Heaven knows who will come out of it alive... If I am called my regret is that I leave you and my bairns... Oh! How I love you all and as I sit here waiting I wonder what you are doing at home. I

My dear father... It is a strange feeling to me but a very real one, that every letter now that I write home to you or to the little sisters may be the last that I shall write or you read. I do not want you to think that I am depressed; indeed on the contrary I am very cheerful. But out here, in odd moments the realisation comes to me of how close death is to us... With my dear love. Pray for me.

Your son, Frank

(Lance Corporal Frank Earley was killed the day after writing this letter aged 19)

Working in pairs, read the first page of the article entitled ‘How did 12 million letters a week reach soldiers.’

Answer the questions that follow.

i. From page one write down two facts about the beginnings of the war time postal service. _________________________________________________________________________________

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2 marks

ii. Give one reason why the postal service was so important to soldiers on the front line.

Reason 1 _________________________________________________________________________

1 mark

Read the first half of page two of the article, up to ‘answered by the Postmaster General rather than the War Minister’ then write a short paragraph outlining what we learn about the author’s experience of being a postman at the end of the war.

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Read the rest of the article, then answer the last question.

At the beginning of the war every letter home was opened and read by a junior officer. It was then opened and

read again at the Home Depot to ensure that it contained no classified information about troop movements or

casualties.

Why were letters opened and read before they were posted home? What were the army worried about?

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4. Put yourself in their shoes

Imagine that you are writing a new play about WW1.

Your need to choose one of our poets as your main

character. In the first scene of the play, the poet reads

out a letter they have written home. You are going to

write that letter.

What information do you know about your poet and the war already that you might include in this

letter?

Planning your letter.

Which poet have you chosen to write as? ____________________

From the presentations and notes you have written, you must now use FIP to help you identify the

most important pieces of information – the pieces of information that would give you something to write

about in your letter.

You might want include ideas such as:

What life is like in the trenches

Ask about things at home – what / who would be on your mind?

What you think about the war

How the war has affected your poetry