Christa Hook’s artwork died. In her handbag, the family found a photograph taken in approximately 1905 of a Salvationist bandsman holding a cornet. ‘My grandmother was born in 1915, so she didn’t really get to know her dad,’ continues Micah. ‘She was one when her dad joined the army and two when he was killed in action, but she carried his photo with her for nearly 95 years.’ Henry Nichols was born in Coventry in 1886 and lived in Earlsdon, about a 15-minute walk from the Salvation Army corps on Queen Victoria Road, where he served in the band between 1904 and 1911. He married in 1910, and the family moved around the area for his work as a farm labourer before settling in Brinklow. Henry initially joined the 12th Service Battalion, Rifle Brigade, in September 1914, but was discharged because his teeth were considered not good enough to deal with army rations. When conscription was introduced in 1916, Henry signed up again and joined the 6th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. After three months of basic training he was sent to France during the Battle of the Somme to join a battalion that had been ‘badly mauled and needed rebuilding’. ‘He was sent over the top at Ovillersla-Boisselle,’ adds Micah. ‘They advanced with fixed bayonets under machine gun fire in a field with bodies of dead men still hanging on barbed wire. They could
Living History re-enactment
see the reality of what they faced all around.’ The horrors of the First World War came alive for Micah, not only through reading archive material, but also visiting the battlefields and war graves, walking over the ground where his great-grandfather saw action. ‘I was privileged to be the first person in 100 years to go down into a First World War tunnel system at La Boiselle. I was lowered down a shaft on a thin metal wire in the same kit as the tunnellers would have worn.’ He spent some time underground reflecting at the site of a ‘blow-in’ – a pile of rubble that had collapsed on two soldiers after a mine exploded – thinking about the dust, the wires, the gas doors and the danger. Micah is part of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Living History Society, which brings First World War trench warfare to life. ‘We recreate the experience of trench routine for 48 hours,’ he explains, ‘which includes working through the night as wiring parties (sappers who repaired wire defences, while sabotaging and cutting German wires). You learn what it’s like to be cold and tired, how to load a rifle and keep a weapon clean in all weathers, how to fix a bayonet into a position so that it will wake you if you fall asleep, what it’s like to wear the kit and feel the weight of the webbing.’ Micah also plays euphonium in the West Midlands Fellowship Band and Jaguar Land Rover Brass Band. During one of the Covid-19 lockdowns he commissioned an instrumental piece to commemorate Henry’s death. Titled ‘11 March 1917’, the piece was written by Bruce Broughton, an American composer of film and TV scores as well as Salvation Army band music. The piece premiered online as an in-person performance was not possible because of the pandemic. To help bring the composition to life, Micah teamed up with the Living History Society to film a short movie that depicts the final days of his great-grandfather’s life. The project was supported by illustrator and artist Christa Hook, who created the artwork shown at the start of the film, and BBC historian Paul Reed, who wrote the introduction. Micah is passionate about the inspiring stories of Salvationist men and women who gave up their daily lives to serve in the army on the front line, be
bandsmen in battalion and regimental bands, work in soup kitchens, become ‘doughnut girls’ or build recreation centres. ‘In 1916 there was a Salvation Army soup kitchen at Delville Wood, which was about a mile from the front, in range of shellfire and gas attacks. What a massive morale boost it must have been for tired, hungry, mud-covered soldiers fighting on the front line to receive soup from The Salvation Army,’ he says. He urges Salvationists to take the time to research the history of their relatives: ‘When you start to see the work of The Salvation Army in the First World War, you will be amazed. These men and women had so much courage. Some of the women had never been abroad before, and they went out in Army uniform and bonnets to serve the soldiers. ‘They saw the horrors of the war, they supported the wounded – writing letters, sitting with them, comforting them, giving food out, building recreation centres – while under fire from artillery guns and bombers.’ ‘There’s a saying that if you want to look forward, look to the past. There is still so much to discover in the past that inspires us for the future,’ he enthuses. ‘We have such an amazing heritage!’ O ‘11
March 1917’ is available to watch online at youtu.be/ lbOxoKTRcSc MELITA IS EDITORIAL ASSISTANT, SALVATIONIST Salvationist 13 November 2021
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