J.B.
Priestley's English Journey first published in 1934 contains an account of a
reunion of his old battalion in a Bradford pub.
London, 1920s.
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"Several of us had arranged with the secretary to see
that original members of the battalion to whom the price of the dinner was prohibitive
were provided with free tickets. But this, he told me, had not worked very well; and my
old platoon comrades confirmed this, too, when I asked about one or two men. They were so
poor, these fellows, that they said they could not attend the dinner even if provided with
free tickets because they felt that their clothes were not good enough..."
"They were with us, swinging along, while the women
and old men cheered, in that early battalion of Kitchener's New Army, were with us when
kings, statesmen, general officers, all reviewed us, when the crowds threw flowers,
blessed us, cried over us; and then stood in the mud and water, scrambled through the
broken strands of barbed wire, saw the sky darken and the earth open with red hot steel,
and came back as official heroes and also as young-old workmen wanting to pick up their
jobs and their ordinary life again; and now, in 1933, they could not even join us in a
tavern because they had no decent coats to their backs. We could drink to the tragedy of
the dead; but we could only stare at one another, in pitiful embarrassment, over this
tragi-comedy of the living, who had fought for a world that did not want them, who had
come back to exchange their uniforms for rags."
The following heartrending account of
the lot of the ex-soldier in 1923 comes from Sydney Chaplin, who had served with the 1st
Northamptonshire Yeomanry
I had a walk round and eventually sat on a seat on the
Embankment. I must have dozed off because it was dark as I woke up, so I decided to stay
put till morning. I woke as the dawn was breaking and what a sight it was. All the seats
were full of old soldiers in all sorts of dress - mostly khaki - and a lot more were lying
on the steps, some wrapped up in old newspapers. Men who had fought in the trenches, now
unwanted and left to starve were all huddled together. I was on the end of a seat so I
eased my fingers into my pocket to get a cigarette.
"That smells good," said the voice of the man
next to me.
I recognised him at once, and handed him a cigarette.
"Would you like a light, Major?"
"Good lord, Corporal..."
We stood up and looked at each other. "What about a
spot of tea?" I asked.
He spread his hands and said "I'm flat broke."
So I took him to a coffee stall and we had a mug of tea and
two slices of bread and dripping each. The Major told me he had been caught out by one of
the many crooks who were battening onto old soldiers.
These offered shares in a business, producing false books,
and when the money had been paid over they just disappeared.
Later I met a man crying in a doorway. He had on an army
greatcoat and a turban and a tray round his neck with lucky charms on it. Another,
unwanted after 3 years in the trenches. He and his wife were penniless when some crook
offered a chance to earn easy money for five shillings He pawned his wife's wedding ring
to get it, and in return he got a tray, a turban and a dozen or so lucky charms to sell at
6d each. Now after a day without anything to eat or drink he was broken-hearted at the
thought of going home to his wife without a penny. He was an ex-CSM.
Extract from Lyn Macdonald Voices
& Images from the Great War 
Jim Hooley grew up in a poor area of
Stockport, near Manchester in the years after the war. In A Hillgate Childhood (1981)
he remembers the frequent sight of people unable to pay their rent being evicted by
bailiffs.
(The furniture would be taken out of
the house and left on the pavement . The father would stay to watch it, while neighbours
looked after his wife and children. One case always stood out in his memory.)
"On my way to school I had to pass an old disused
public house. A family had taken up residence in this building. I knew the boy who lived
there: his mother and father were quite respectable. However, one morning on my way to
school I saw a crowd of people round the old building.. Making my way to the front of the
crowd I could see the old familiar scene - another eviction. Next morning, on my way to
school, I again saw a crowd round the old pub. On looking at the scene, I saw three first
World War medals placed on an old sideboard which the bailiffs had taken out of the house
the day before. A lady in the crowd told me that the father had got back into the building
during the night and hanged himself."
 Behind the Window by H.V.Morton tells
the story of a poignant encounter with a disabled ex-soldier
page one
page two
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