Fallen soldier's painting restored after years of neglect
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Daily Mail
16-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Long lost WWI sketchbook reveals Tommy's view of life in the trenches in the year of the Battle of the Somme
A fascinating sketchbook from a Tommy in the trenches has been discovered in a storage locker 109 years later. Lieutenant Frederick Holmes was a Chelsea tailor and an accomplished artist before the start of the First World War. He was sent to the Western Front in 1916 - the year of the bloody Battle of the Somme - and fought with the London Regiment. During his time there he produced 45 colour sketches depicting wartime views including life in the trenches and the French countryside. There is a poignant image of a lone soldier sitting at the end of a trench with his bayonet staring into the distance. Another is of a collection of rifle grenades stood upright and primed for action while a third is a harrowing view of a smouldering battlefield. Away from the front Lieutenant Holmes also captured views of the French countryside. There is one picture of a church at Auxi-le-Chateau which had so far escaped battle damage and a row of barren trees. On a break from fighting, Lieutenant Holmes brought his sketchbook with him to the idyllic St Cecile beach on the north French coast and did some drawings there. The tranquil setting would have been a stark contrast to the bloodshed he witnessed on the battlegrounds of north west France. The sketchbook was recently unearthed by the vendor who was going through a storage locker in Devon. Its previous provenance is a mystery but the auctioneers hailed it as a 'rare and evocative discovery'. The sketchbook has emerged for sale for £1,200 at Rendells Auctioneers, of Newton Abbot, Devon. Dave Marochan, specialist at Rendells Auctioneers, said: 'The vendor was at a storage locker sale in Devon and spotted the sketchbook which caught her interest. 'We sadly don't know how it ended up there in the first place but it is really is a fabulous thing. 'There are 45, mostly colour, sketches which are of high quality and Lieutenant Holmes clearly had a very good eye. 'We believe that he worked as a tailor in Chelsea which helped him with the lines. 'There are some very evocative sketches of life in the trenches and you almost feel as it you are transported back there. 'To discover something like this is quite rare and I would say it is worthy of a museum.' The sale takes place tomorrow.
The National
15-07-2025
- The National
The Scot who who suggested schoolchildren be given free milk
Garlanded with honours during his long career, Boyd Orr was knighted in 1935 and created a life peer as Lord Boyd Orr in 1949. A tall, distinctive man with 'penetrating blue eyes' and 'astonishing' bushy eyebrows and who smoked a pipe, his family affectionately referred to him as 'Popeye'. Unsurprisingly, much has been written about Boyd Orr. Yet few of these narratives make mention of the driving ideological force behind his endeavours: humanism. READ MORE: Rarely seen Millais artworks to be displayed in Scotland for the first time While readers might associate humanism with celebrants who conduct wedding, funeral and naming ceremonies for the non-religious, it is, and has been, a considerably more expansive moral, ethical and rational life stance. Historian Callum Brown reassesses this aspect of Boyd Orr's career in his forthcoming book, Ninety Humanists And The Ethical Transition Of Britain. For Brown, Boyd Orr was: 'A humanist scientist whose ethical commitment drew upon humanitarianism, the autonomy of the human being and internationalism. He was devoted to a simple cause – ending hunger as a means to ending war.' Humanism and Humanitarianism BOYD Orr was born in Kilmaurs, Ayrshire, in 1880. His hostility to organised religion, Brown writes, was 'shaped in his youth and crafted an adherence to rationalist science and humanist ethics'. Boyd Orr's family home was 'strictly religious'. His Free Church father, 'enveloped the family in a regime of nightly prayers, puritan morality and Sabbath observance'. As Boyd Orr recalled in his memoir, 'promiscuous dancing' was considered abhorrent, and he did not dance until he was nearly 30. After this, he rarely missed a ceilidh. He discarded the faith of his family, although, rather confusingly, not before he had published a book on theological debate. He eschewed church, apart from a visit to a Quaker Meeting House, where he approved of the lack of ornamentation, doctrines and freedom of conscience. Reading the work of Charles Darwin led Boyd Orr, Brown argues, to break from the hold of biblical interpretation. In Glasgow, he was much affected by the deprivation he witnessed in the city's slums, then among the worst in western Europe. His experience, which included several years as a teacher in the east end, gave him an 'intense hatred of unnecessary hunger and poverty'. After a complex career of study, in which he came to specialise in nutrition, Boyd Orr graduated as a medical doctor in 1913, joining a new research centre in Aberdeen, the Rowett Institute. Following the outbreak of the First World War, Boyd Orr served as a senior medic in the Royal Army Medical Corps, rescuing the wounded at the Battle of the Somme, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. He also used his knowledge to improve the diet of soldiers. Nutrition BROWN demonstrates that Boyd Orr's humanitarian drive to understand and counter the malnourishment of the poor, and children in particular, was a constant driver in his research. Convinced of the nutritional benefits of milk, Boyd Orr was appalled it was wasted when poor families could not afford it, and that his proposals for a government scheme to supply free milk to schools were ignored. He conducted large-scale experiments in the mid-1930s which conclusively showed the benefits of milk consumption among Scottish children and was reported widely in the press as having shown that around one-third of children in Britain and Northern Ireland were malnourished. By the 1950s and 60s, the free milk in schools scheme was the eventual result of such campaigning. It was, according to Brown, the simplest and most effective mass system to improve physical health ever devised. Boyd Orr was at the forefront of an ethical movement for dietary improvement, which drew the admiration of humanists such as Julian Huxley and fellow Scot Naomi Mitchison. Throughout the 1930s and 40s, he persistently lobbied government to improve the diet of the population, advocating that food supply be subject to state intervention. In 1943, he appeared in a documentary, World Of Plenty, which presented in simple terms his argument that the world was shifting from food scarcity to plenty. The same year, he was elected to Parliament as an independent MP representing the Scottish universities. World Government BOYD Orr's ethical ambitions were greater still. In the years following the Second World War, his mission was to achieve world peace by transforming the supply of food across the globe. In 1946, acclaimed by fellow nutritionists the world over, he was appointed the first director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. Three years later, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Receiving the award, he stated there would be: 'No peace in the world so long as a large proportion of the population lacks the necessities of life and believes that a change in the political and economic system will make them available. World peace must be based on world plenty.' Humanists such as HG Wells had long dreamed of utopian schemes which would create international institutions to ensure prosperity and to prevent conflict. With Boyd Orr appointed to the United Nations, such dreams seemed upon the cusp of becoming reality. Yet his plans for a World Food Bank, and a huge international project to boost agricultural productivity, lacked political support. 'Boyd Orr,' Brown argues, 'proclaimed the power of science to transform the world, to quell racism, to feed the millions and thereby to end war, travelling the world telling this story to intellectuals, medics and scientists.' On Boyd Orr's death in 1971, aged 90, an extensive obituary lauded him as 'one of the truly outstanding Scotsmen of the age'. Charlie Lynch thanks Callum Brown for providing him with a preview of his forthcoming book, Ninety Humanists And The Ethical Transition Of Britain: The Open Conspiracy 1930-80, which will be published by Bloomsbury Academic in November
Daily Mirror
01-07-2025
- Daily Mirror
Hundreds pay respects to 20,000 Brits killed on first day of Battle of the Somme
Poignant sound of whistles heard as tributes paid to the 20,000 British soldiers killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme - 109 years ago Hundreds of people gathered early this morning to pay their respects to the 20,000 British soldiers who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme - 109 years ago today. They arrived at the huge Lochnager crater - situated in the heart of the Somme region where the battle started. At precisely 6.28am UK time the service began - the moment the first bomb was detonated under German lines. Among them was 15-year-old schoolboy Ronnie Price. He sat a GCSE mock in history at his school in Borehamwood, Herts yesterday and will be back for his physics exam tomorrow. "It's just really important to be here to pay our respects to these men who died 109 years ago today," he said alongside his dad Darren. Those present, including children, symbolically blew whistles, the signal for soldiers to 'go over the top' and advance on the German lines, only to be mown down. Despite the searing heat touching 30 degrees there were hundreds of all nationalities paying their respects. July 1st 1916 was the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army. By sunset 20,000 British troops lay dead on the battlefield. Tens of thousands more were wounded. More men died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme than the total casualty numbers (of both sides) at the Battle of Waterloo. It was a scene recalled in the iconic final episode of the TV show Blackadder. Trustee Julie Thomson thanked those attending addressing them in English, French and German: "welcome, bienvenue, wilkommen. Thank you for gathering with us today as we remember and reflect on events here 109 years ago. ' She said: 'The sound of the whistles and the solo piper playing so beautifully, are evocative reminders of that sunny Saturday morning when so many lives were changed or lost forever and the echoes of that grief and loss reverberate today. We all feel it in some way. It is why we are here. This very visible wound of war reminds us all of their sacrifice and gives us an opportunity to strive for peace in all our lives. In our own way, we can all 'do our bit.' At the end of the ceremony a Tiger Moth plane from the WW1 Aviation Heritage Trust flew over the Crater, dropping seeded paper which have poems written on them by school children.' Julie also read a message from Lochnager legend, and owner, Richard Dunning who sadly could not be here due to ill health. He said: 'Where we stand silently is known as the bloodiest square mile on the Western Front, and the site of some of the most intense suffering and loss of that war. Countless visitors come each year to stand in respect and remembrance before this awesome wound on the battlefield. But Lochnagar is a different kind of memorial. Yes, we are drawn together by a common sense of purpose: a sacred duty to honour the memory and sacrifice of the fallen of all nations. 'But we ask something more; that when we leave, we share with those we meet that profound compassion and fellowship that drew each of us here today. So that this place may become an everlasting symbol of forgiveness and reconciliation. That is the true mission of Lochnagar. And finally, may the unique, healing peace of this special place be with each of you today, and all days.' What happened on that day 109 years ago was captured for posterity by British pilot Cecil Lewis. Lewis, whose aircraft was hit by lumps of mud thrown up by the described the early morning scene in his 1977 book Sagittarius Rising. "We were over Thiepval and turned south to watch the mines. As we sailed down above all, came the final moment. Zero! At Boisselle the earth heaved and flashed, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up into the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar, drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earthly column rose, higher and higher to almost four thousand feet. "A moment later came the second mine. Again the roar, the upflung machine, the strange gaunt silhouette invading the sky. Then the dust cleared and we saw the two white eyes of the craters. The barrage had lifted to the second-line trenches, the infantry were over the top, the attack had begun.' 109 years on the sheer tragedy of that day is still being remembered.
