Tonight there's a programme on television where celebrities are going to discover the histories of their military ancestors. They'll hear tales they never heard before.
"They didn't talk about it," seems to be what older people say of those they knew who had served in WW1.
I've started re-reading 'Forbidden Zone', a book by Mary Borden drawn from her experience of running hospitals near the Front Line in France. I found it in the Wellcome Library bookshop, sat down with a coffee to read it and didn't move till I'd finished. I guess the fact that it left me speechless reflects its indescribable content.
She dedicates the book to the poilus (wounded French soldiers) who "know not only everything that is contained in it, but all the rest that can never be written."
Like these others, Isabella doesn't seem to have spoken to anyone about her war service or her medical career. She stopped practising in the mid-30s. But 50 years later, when she died, her son and daughter had to write to the Medical Directory to inform them of Isabella's death. 'Doctors submit their contact details for inclusion in this publication in a voluntary basis,' states the website.
If that was me, it would represent a latent pride in my achievements, a longing for them not to be forgotten. Of course it may be more likely that she forgot to tell them to take her name off, but I'd far rather imagine her pride carrying on right to her frail old age.
"They didn't talk about it," seems to be what older people say of those they knew who had served in WW1.
I've started re-reading 'Forbidden Zone', a book by Mary Borden drawn from her experience of running hospitals near the Front Line in France. I found it in the Wellcome Library bookshop, sat down with a coffee to read it and didn't move till I'd finished. I guess the fact that it left me speechless reflects its indescribable content.
"To those who find these impressions confused, I would say that they are fragments of a great confusion. Any attempt to reduce them to order would require artifice on my part and would falsify them. To those on the other hand who find them unbearably plain, I would say that I have blurred the bare horror of facts and softened the reality in spite of myself, not because I wished to do so, but because I was incapable of a nearer approach to the truth," she writes.
She dedicates the book to the poilus (wounded French soldiers) who "know not only everything that is contained in it, but all the rest that can never be written."
Like these others, Isabella doesn't seem to have spoken to anyone about her war service or her medical career. She stopped practising in the mid-30s. But 50 years later, when she died, her son and daughter had to write to the Medical Directory to inform them of Isabella's death. 'Doctors submit their contact details for inclusion in this publication in a voluntary basis,' states the website.
If that was me, it would represent a latent pride in my achievements, a longing for them not to be forgotten. Of course it may be more likely that she forgot to tell them to take her name off, but I'd far rather imagine her pride carrying on right to her frail old age.
Question: What dictates the things we keep silent about?
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