‘My boy was my all’: letters from a bereaved mother to a Somme widow

My maternal grandmother (née Clarke) had six brothers, all keen poker players. All six volunteered to fight in the Great War, and only one, Sergeant Herbert Clarke, of B Company, 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, failed to return to civilian life afterwards. He was blown up by a shell during the second week of the Battle of the Somme.

Shortly before the shell got him, Herbert had taken some leave and married his sweetheart, Dolly. Dolly never got over him. Just before she died, she passed on Herbert’s army papers and tiny, secretly kept diary to my aunt. The diary was written in pencil and difficult to decipher, but to mark the centenary of the start of the war, a member of my aunt’s local historical society painstakingly transcribed it and published it in their historical magazine. Herbert writes cheerfully and well and he seems to have enjoyed his time at the front, though he admits to being sick of eating omelettes.