1917, towels on beach chairs and 1966 ......

Sam Mendes film 1917 has been very well received.

It is a critical success and won a Bafta.

It has also been a success at the box office.

I was interested to see the film for two or three reasons:

both my grandfathers were combatants in the first world war

my job with Toc H brought a close association with WW1 History

my attendance at the Menin Gate ceremony introduced me to the idea that Commonwealth soldiers fought in Flanders and the Ypre Salient

The reviews of the film seemed to suggest that the presence of a Sikh soldier was provocative and that the story line was both compelling and emotionally challenging.

However as I watched the film I was struck by the fact that there was single soldier of Asian origin which compared unfavourably with the long and moving roll of names inscribed on the Menin Gate.

The mission that the two corporals were ordered to undertake was also interesting when I recalled a man that I worked with in Stoke on Trent in the 1960's.

He had been a messenger in the second world war and had been sent back from the front line with a message that British Cannon fire intended to support an advance was causing british casualties as the front line advanced into the path of the cannonade.

He was ordered to return with a message that it was not possible to cease firing because that would delay the advance it was the normal dilemma of war.

Another challenge for me was the state of the uniform of the surviving messenger as he appeared before Benedict Cumberbatch from the stories that my grandfathers told me I suspect that he would have been arrested on the spot for losing his rifle, his helmet and his back pack rather than being listened to and the message ehe delivered acted upon.

What amazed me however was the size of the audience in Consett on a Tuesday afternoon. Normally when we attend the pensioners show we might be sitting in a theatre with perhaps a dozen other people for 1917 the cinema was full of as someone in the queue observed people of a certain age.

But as I reflected on this I considered that my father who served in the Second World War would have been 100 this year and my grandfathers, who served in the First War, would have been 130 or so.

Nobody in the Cinema was that age, some were older than me, some younger but I would hazard a guess that there were no ex combatants from either war.

So I was left to puzzle over why the film was so popular with people of a certain age.

I  imagined looking around the audience that a majority of the audience would have voted to leave the European Union.

I formed the opinion that the film 1917 was in fact the first Brexit film, but as to the psychology of that, well that would be the basis of another blog that might touch on towels on beach chairs and 1966.





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