Listen online: Patrick Stewart reads JB Priestley's letters from the trenches
The moving letters written by JB Priestley from the trenches of the First World War have been published for the first time - 90 years after Armistice Day.
In this Yorkshire Post programme, recorded at the 2008 Ilkley Literature Festival, Priestley's son Tom and his co-author Neil Hanson talk about the collection, and Priestley reads some of the letters.
There are also readings by the actor Patrick Stewart and a taste of what Priestley's Second world War broadcasts were like.
Below, the Yorkshire Post's Sarah Freeman evaluates the collection.
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JB PRIESTLEY was a man who always spoke his mind.
Through his newspaper columns, novels and radio broadcasts, the Bradford author wrote prolifically about the folly of war, the hopes and fears of ordinary families living under its shadow and when the world turned to nuclear weapons he helped to found CND.
His belief in peaceful means and his abject horror at what he saw as a world ripping itself apart is well-documented, but the man known as a life-long socialist also volunteered to serve in the First World War.
On September 7, 1914 , six days short of his 20th birthday and a year after writing a criticism of war for The Bradford Pioneer, Priestley enthusiastically answered Lord Kitchener's call to arms.
Little has been known about this period of his life, but the rediscovery of his letters written from the trenches sheds new light on Priestley's war years.
"For someone who was so staunchly Left-wing, it was an extraordinary decision," says Neil Hanson, who with the help of Priestley' son Tom has published the letters, along with his other writings on war, in a new book.
"Later he tried to explain it away as some kind of test of his manhood, but I'm not so sure. Priestley was not the kind of man to admit he had been caught up in the general patriotic fervour of the time, but whatever the reason for him signing up he quickly embraced Forces life.
"The letters are like the last piece of the jigsaw. For the last 50-odd years, they have been in a box under Tom's bed, but set in the context of his other writings it shows how the thinking of one of the country's most influential writers of our time was shaped."
The earliest letters from the country's various training camps contain familiar grumbles. Priestley complains about the food and the general living conditions, but his well-rehearsed criticismsof waging war are replaced with an enthusiasm for the physical training.
However, as the weeks go by, his mood changes. The human cost of a war, which would claim the lives of more than a million and half Britons, had already become apparent. Posted to the trenches of France, he despairs at the futility of it all.
"They start out with great enthusiasm but it doesn't take long for him to become disenchanted with the realities of the conflict," says Neil, who became aware of Priestley's legacy as a schoolboy growing up in Shipley. "The incessant toll of deaths and the pointless activities given to the troops to keep them occupied fuelled his growing cynicism. He later wrote that he spent the first year being a hero and the rest of the time trying to stay alive and it coloured the rest of his life.
"In some of the letters you can tell he is trying to summon a cheerful tone, perhaps for the benefit of his parents, but his fears are never very far away. I've written various books on the people who served in the First World War and like Priestley, most were reluctant to talk about their experience afterwards. What they saw out there was so scarring and so horrific that they never wanted to return to those dark places again."
Priestley's war ended in 1916 when a mortar exploded near his trench and he was buried alive under the debris. He never returned to live in Bradford, studying first at Cambridge and later moving to London to pursue his dream of becoming a freelance writer
The collection of letters is not complete, but in Priestley's Wars the surviving correspondence is included alongside his later musings on war, in particular the manuscripts of his weekly Postscript radio broadcasts during the Second World War. The series was designed to boost morale at home and the BBC decided that Priestley and his Yorkshire accent might be a welcome antidote to the clipped voices which dominated the airwaves.
"People forget what an influential figure he was during the Second World War," says Neil. "He was the first to break the mould of BBC's traditional Queen's English output and his unpretentious manner was a breath of fresh air.
"Priestley wasn't afraid of speaking his mind and that often put him in direct conflict with the Prime Minister Winston Churchill. After the Great War, Priestley was horrified by the numbers of troops who ended up living in abject poverty. He felt they had been failed by the country they had fought so hard to protect.
"During the Second World War, he was determined the soldiers should return to a Britain which was fit for heroes. Churchill wasn't thinking that far into the future. He just wanted victory and I imagine he viewed Priestley as an irritant.
"History shows that Priestley didn't suffer fools gladly. He was a typical Yorkshire man who called a spade a spade but he spoke up for the ordinary families of this country and gave a voice to their hopes and fears."
With his work banned by the Nazis and his name added to the death list of those to be executed on the successful invasion of Britain, Priestley knew his views could potentially land him in serious trouble. However, he never stopped probing and desperately unhappy with the world, greedy for nuclear arms, which emerged from the shadow of the Second World War, in 1958 he was moved to help to found CND.
"Priestley felt people had become selfish and cynical and the community cohesion which had existed during the war had been lost," adds Neil.
"He was a great opponent of nuclear weapons and I think we can guess what he would have thought of today's conflicts. Priestley had an intuitive ability to assess the mood of the country and reach into the hearts of people. All he wanted was a better world."
THE LETTERS
1914, England
I am writing this in my hut by the feeble light of a candle; it is a very difficult business; we are all huddled together and then we shall be shifted to a winter camp...We wash in a lake about a quarter of a mile distant. I am sorry to say there have been a few deaths here. However, I have never felt better in my life.
As the weeks pass by and our training advances, the work becomes more interesting. We have musket drill and are becoming accustomed to handling a rifle. We have manoeuvres of various kinds, especially at night, when we practise moving about silently in the darkness. Sometimes when we are lying on the ground with our rifles in hand, at night, it seems like the real thing.
1915, England
It strikes me that they will need a great many more men in France shortly, so perhaps we shall go there. I hope so. The men here are getting thoroughly dissatisfied at being kept so long training and training month after month... of course we are being trained to do things that were not dreamed of in modern warfare a year ago, and when we do go, we shall not go to our slaughter as the Regulars did, but properly equipped with machine-guns, machine rifles (the new invention) and bombs of every description.
1915, France
Every now and then bullets and shells come whizzing over our heads. At night, it is very weird; we are all on the alert and star shells like rockets are sent up now and again making the place look as light as day. The nights seem to stretch out to eternity. Rats and mice, wasps and gigantic bluebottles abound in the dugouts. Taking it all round, we are all in good spirit, but dreadfully filthy.
I have seen some terrible sights and endured some hardships, but believe me, I never lost my nerve and strange to say, I felt a strange exultation of the soul at the expense of the body... I suppose I am a man now and am certainly going through an ordeal. Perhaps it would be as well if everybody went through some test of manhood.
Winter has set in very thoroughly and the trenches are in a frightful state: mud and water everywhere...I thought Bradford was a bad place for rain, but it's the Sahara desert compared with this miserable country.
May 1916
We were near the first aid Dressing Station this morning and there I saw the body of a young lad of 18, who came into the trenches last night for the first time, and was shot through the head. Fate seems to have a grim and gruesome humour of her own, and out here, she sometimes exercises it.
Priestley's Wars, edited by Neil Hanson with Tom Priestley, is published by Great Northern, priced 18.99. Copies can be ordered through the Yorkshire Post Bookshop on 0800 0153232 or online at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk.
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