Listening to the quiet voices of The Somme
As a child I was forever fascinated by a random collection of oul ‘things’ in a rarely-approached cupboard at home. It was the sort of place where unflattering school reports and old medical cards lay alongside broken spectacles and stringless yoyos, the theory being that they might some day be read, repaired or resurrected. There were a few medals – the full relevance of which I never discovered – but what especially caught my imagination was a bloodstained Nazi armband, …