Soldiers letters often spoke of the longing for normal life, things we take for granted today.

In 1915, writing to his fiancée, Private Percy O’Brien of the Leicester Regiment captured this perfectly in a single line:

“When I come home, the first thing I want is a bath.

The second is you.”

It’s the perfect mix of humour and honesty.

This Advent, we’re opening one letter each day, revealing the voices that rarely make the history books but tell us the most about the human experience of war.