Different Worlds | Pictures of the Past

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"War turns us to stone.
In remembrance we shine
and rise to new days."

-- Semaphore message of remembrance, London, November 2005.

"Message", a semaphore message of remembrance, was transmitted along the River Thames in London today (Remembrance Sunday, 13 November 2005). The performance artwork was commissioned for the day by the National Maritime Museum, and was composed and arranged by artist Beth Derbyshire.

A young boy pretending to be a soldier.
Photograph of young boy playing at being a soldier.

Among the family papers passed down to my mother were a collection of photographs taken by her Uncle Johnny, a keen amateur photographer who was involved in aerial reconnaissance during World War One. He took many unofficial photographs, and we have scanned these and displayed them here. In autumn 2000 we discovered and scanned two further sets of photographs. One set consists of German photographs which were passed to another of her uncles (an Army officer) to review (he obviously decided to keep them rather than destroying or filing them), and the other set is of from Pforzheim where Allied officer prisoners of war were held, and where her father was held for the last year of the war.

Roland Fogt, a visitor to this website, has very kindly sent me a few photographs from his family to add to these pages. They show his grandfather, Wilhelm Höffgen, and his grandfather's older brother, Karl Höffgen.

And more recently, at the beginning of 2005, another kind visitor to this website, Bernard Cousin, a farmer near Armentieres, sent me some photographs he took of the Cité Bonjean Military Cemetery, where one of my great uncles is buried.

I hope you find these glimpses of the past interesting, and our thanks to the many people, young and old, who have emailed or left messages in the Guest Book to say how much these pictures have helped with various projects - these messages do mean a lot to us, even when we don't have the time to reply personally to all of them.

Review the list of books about the First World War currently available on Amazon.co.uk.

The Leslie Smith Family
In the Trenches
Women in wartime
Training camp - building pontoon bridges
Miscellaneous
Armentieres, 1914-1915
Charleroi, Belgium, 1919
German photographs (7 pages)
Höffgen brothers
Pforzheim prisoner of war camp, 1918-1919 (4 pages)
"Duties": a poem by Lucy Brown that was partly inspired by the photographs on this website.

Copyright, ownership & use of the photographs on this site

Cité Bonjean Military Cemetery

The photographs of the cemetery in 2004 and 2005 were taken by Bernard Cousin, and are used with his permission. All rights in these photographs remain with him. Please email him at b.cousin@terre-net.fr to request permission to use any of these photographs. Thank you.

Höffgen brothers

The photographs of the Höffgen brothers belong to Roland Fogt, and are used with his permission. All rights in these photographs remain with him. You are welcome to copy and use any of these photographs for educational and other non-commercial purposes (please email Roland to let him know if you do). For any other proposed use of these photographs, please contact Roland at raf2004@sbcglobal.net to discuss. Thank you.

All other WW1 photographs

All of the other WW1 photographs shown on these pages belong to my mother, Mrs J Smillie. All current rights in these photographs remain with her. You are welcome to copy and use any of these photographs for educational and other non-commercial purposes (we'd love to know about it if you do). For any other proposed use of these photographs, please email me at dms@zetnet.co.uk to discuss. Thank you.

Webrings & other useful links

As well as browsing the webrings below, here are a couple of very useful sites:

You will find a vast treasure trove of links to further information about World War One at http://www.teacheroz.com/wwi.htm - it's well worth a visit.
For more information about the British Army and British soldiers in WW1, see "The British Army in the Great War" at http://www.1914-1918.net/ - an excellent site with lots of information and links to other quality sites about WW1.