Back to the Front: trench life in a corner of Kent
‘It wasn’t always “going over the top” like you see in films’
AS THE centenary of the end of the First World War approaches, people across the nation will embark on commemorations to ensure the sacrifice of a generation is never forgotten.
One man, in a field near Canterbury, has devised what may prove to be a unique project, after building a fullscale trench network to allow visitors to experience life on the Western Front.
Andy Robertshaw, a military historian who specialises in the First World War, has spent 18 months and around
£8,000 transforming a one-acre plot of Kent farmland into a recreation of British and German trenches.
He plans to invite members of the public to spend
48 hours on site, giving them an insight into the conditions faced by soldiers.
While they will not face the horrors of machine guns or shells or the unfathomable conditions that led to trench foot and other conditions, Mr Robertshaw said the exercise would allow interested members of the public to learn what it was like “90 per cent of the time for World War One soldiers”.
The 61-year-old recruited 10 volunteers to create the trench network, complete with firing bays, an aid post, an engineers’ store, a dugout, lavatories, kitchen and a railway.
He based the design on the British “Marlborough Street trench”, originally near to Hawthorn Ridge, a fortified German position which was blown up by Allied tunnellers in July 1916. With chalk-based ground and a thin layer of top soil, he said the geology was “very similar” to that of the Somme, allowing him to complete the deeply personal project in honour of his grandfather, John Andrew Robertshaw of the East Yorkshire Regiment, who fought in the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Arras. The network spans around 200ft by 660ft. The British trench can sleep up to 30 people, while the German trench can sleep 10. Mr Robertshaw is a former curator of the Royal Logistic Corps Museum, author of several books on the First World War, lecturer and historical consultant for films including War Horse.
He said he was keen to emphasise that the trench is not a war memorial to the soldiers who died, but is instead a memorial of how they lived.
“Our trench network shows what life was like 90 per cent of the time for World War One soldiers,” he said. “It wasn’t always going ‘over the top’ like
‘I wanted to do day-today life rather than combat to show the mundane, humdrum normality [of the trenches]’
you see in films. My ambition is for it to become a permanent site for people who can’t go to France and Belgium. We’re going to launch a 48-hour trench experience in the autumn, where people can arrive, get into uniform and have a ‘bootcamp’-style introduction to the experience of a Great War soldier.
“It would be an introduction to life in a trench done in real time. I wanted to do day-to-day life rather than combat to show the mundane, humdrum normality that was the experience for so many people’s great-grandfathers and other relatives.”