When the First World War broke out, the Post Office was the biggest employer in the world, with its own company of volunteer part-time soldiers, The Post Office Rifles. Suddenly catapulted into conflict, ordinary postmen & messenger boys found themselves in the trenches of the Western Front, hoping that their own letters would reach home
- & relying on the letters & parcels they received for comfort & much-needed boosts to morale. By the war`s end, 1, 500 of them had been killed. Using the personal stories, letters & diary entries of the men who joined the Post Office Riffles, this is a moving account of how the war touched the lives of ordinary people
- how it changed communities, how women took up men`s work, &, of course, the vital role the mail played in winning the war.