Letters from the front weren’t always comforting. Some carried frustration and a sharp awareness of distance between those fighting and those at home.

Dr. Ivan Pirrie, Royal Army Medical Corps, wrote in 1914:

“If only some of those men in England who are still watching football matches would take their share, perhaps our poor devils could have a rest.”

Men wrote home knowing that life continued. Crowds still gathered, matches were played and normal routines carried on, all while they existed in a different world entirely.

This letter reminds us that war is never experienced equally.

This Advent, we share voices from all sides of 20th-century conflict, exploring the many ways war was experienced by those who lived through it.