Artist in Residence Post: Remembering the Living

By Juliet MacDonald

Two months ago, I was appointed as artist in residence to work with a body of WW1 letters, diaries, interviews and artefacts held in the Liddle Collection. Housed at Leeds University Special Collections, this archive contains first-person accounts from both World Wars, but during the current centenaries it is the 1914-18 documents that are the primary focus of attention.

Dr Peter Liddle began interviewing men and women about their wartime experiences in 1968. The project grew into an enormous undertaking as he realised the stories of the First World War generation would be lost if concerted efforts were not made to capture and preserve them. In a recent talk he explained the sense of responsibility he felt:

‘Teaching myself to work with older people to draw out their memories and, in particular, learning that their experiences in the Great War left them drawing conclusions rather different from those with which I was familiar, led me to the inspiring, but also frightening realisation that I was standing in the midst of a diminishing body of evidence, with memories unrecorded, going to the grave, and unvalued letters, diaries, photographs and three-dimensional souvenirs going to the bin – lost for ever. I had found what I wanted to do with my life, indeed had to do with it – somehow, to undertake the rescue of this threatened evidence.’¹

Liddle placed advertisements in the press, scoured obituary columns and travelled extensively to gather first hand testimonies of those still alive in the 1970s and 80s. He aimed to interview people from all walks of life, to represent the range of roles that were played and record their attitudes to war. Many letters and possessions were donated by families after their relatives had passed away. He mobilised teams of volunteers to receive and process the donated material, amassing cupboards full of it at Sunderland Polytechnic where he was then based. By the time the Collection was moved to Leeds in 1988 it filled three large removal vans.

My interview with Dr Liddle two weeks ago convinced me that the formation of this unique archive is itself a remarkable tale of historical retrieval at a time when wartime memories seemed to be slipping away. The tape-recorded voices and hand-written letters are fragile traces of past lives, but they are now safely preserved in Special Collections. The archive is a valued resource for historical researchers, and also for those like me, who approach the collection as a source of information and inspiration for artworks and performances. The display currently on show in the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery education room, The Individual Remains: Untold Stories of the First World War, is one such example.

I first learned about the First World War as a young teenager. In our English lessons we studied All Quiet on the Western Front, by the German author Erich Maria Remarque, and the work of war poets such as Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Their words made a great impression on me, and like many people I continue to associate the First World War with the horrors of trench warfare. The Liddle Collection certainly contains stories of terrifying and violent experiences on the Western Front. However, opening the folders and files one finds that war recollections can be extremely varied. For example, last week I was reading a transcript of an interview with a woman who worked as a munitions worker in the ordnance factory at Gretna. She describes being commended by factory managers for mopping up leaking nitro-glycerine with a sponge. I also looked through a very lively autograph album belonging to a nurse who worked in a hospital for war wounded in Lewisham. Each soldier named the battle and date of his injuries, but in addition to signatures the book is filled with humorous verses, elegantly written messages and accomplished drawings. The photograph albums of those serving in Egypt show that tourist visits to see the pyramids formed part of their wartime experiences.

The Collection contains numerous files relating to WW1 operations in Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia. On 22 November 1914, Anglo-Indian forces captured Basra from the control of the Ottoman Empire. In the spring of 1917 after a number of setbacks, the British took Baghdad. Another British-led offensive advanced from Egypt through Palestine, taking over Jerusalem and moving on to Syria. The allied forces reached Damascus and Aleppo by the end of the war. Personal documents, photographs and maps belonging to servicemen who found themselves fighting in the deserts provide a vivid picture of how these territories were occupied. They also serve as a reminder that regions of the world fought over by empires a hundred years ago are still contested and scarred by conflict today.

As we remember those who took part in the First World War it is important to consider its legacy, and also to acknowledge the experience of people who currently live and suffer in regions of conflict.

¹ Peter Liddle ‘A Pilgrim’s Progress: In pursuit of the Great War’. [Public talk] Gilbert and Sullivan Festival Fringe Event, Crown Hotel, Harrogate, UK, 3 August 2014.

Juliet MacDonald is Leverhulme Artist in Residence with the Liddle Collection and Legacies of War.