Quick And The Dead

Product Description

At the end of the First World War more than 192 000 wives had lost their husbands & nearly 400 000 children had lost their fathers. A further half a million children had lost one or more siblings. Appallingly one in eight wives died within a year of receiving news of their husbands death. Few people remained unscathed & the effects of the conflict are still with us. The Quick & the Dead will pay tribute to the families who were left to suffer at home while their husband fathers & sons went off to fight & the generations that followed. Through the stories in this groundbreaking history we realise not just what became of our grandfathers but how their experiences influenced the children grandchildren & great grandchildren of a generation that they left at home. Against all the odds some stories ended happily
- missing fathers did return men thought to be dead returned from prisoner of war camps to a joyous reunion. For others the loss while difficult to bear at the time gave them an independence drive & ambition that ensured that their lives were successful & a fitting tribute to those who died. Very few people know that only the first minutes silence on Armistice Day is in memory of the dead of the Great War & all the subsequent wars. The second minute is for the living the survivors of the war & the wives & the children they left behind. Through a unique collection of over fifty interviews private diaries & a remarkable collection of unpublished letters written by the soldiers to their families back home The Quick & the Dead is a history of those who are commonly forgotten & neglected when the fallen are remembered on Armistice Day.