Easily one of the best British war films.

Dear Mr Khazi:

It is for me to thank you for your generous response.

I share your feeling that history, as passed on by films, is a dodgy business; books and personally-imparted memories are much more vital. In that spirit, and just as an anecdote, I can share with you my memory, when I was twelve, of hearing my elderly grandfather, who had been at or near Vimy Ridge, talking to a friend from the Great War and saying, “Oh, the Germans had it all over us.” It is in his military record, which I obtained, that he won a battlefield commission, but he would, to my knowledge, never speak of it. His son, my mother’s brother, was killed in Normandy while serving with the Canadian Black Watch. It is true that we have books – more and more of them these days – to tell us of our fathers’ deeds – but, as you say, it is even better to listen to those closer voices. There is a quality to them that books can’t quite capture, and, as time goes, it will be more difficult to hear those voices at first hand.
And, of course, history is in the details that don’t make it into the books. It might amuse you to know that my uncle is actually mentioned in Bernard Fergusson’s ( who was one of Wingate’s disciples, in a qualified way, I gather.) book “The Black Watch and the King’s Enemies” for having enabled his platoon to cross a stream in Normandy by leaping in and holding a flimsy bridge together. As it happens, he wrote in a letter, perhaps his last, to his brother that the Lieut. of the next platoon simply lashed the bridge together with a bit of rope and his men crossed without any fuss at all.

It is from these trivial details, as much as from the much more explosive realities, that we learn that we who were not there cannot grasp it. Still, I think it is important that we try.

In fact, I carefully avoided “Passchendaele”; without needing to see it, I knew it to be a Canadian version of “Gallipoli”. Paul Gross is an actor known for portraying a member of the Northwest Mounted Police; I don’t know what credentials he has as an historian or as a director, for that matter. ( There was another, even worse, Canadian “docu-drama” about Bomber Command. …”We had no idea we were bombing cities.” As if they could not read a map. But we could perhaps discuss that moral issue at a latter time.)

Perhaps we should reflect upon the fact, and be encouraged by it, that even if people who try to deal with the great wars get almost everything wrong, at least it shows that an interest in those wars still thrives, as it should.

It is, as always, a pleasure to converse with you.

With respectful regards,

Tom