BATH IN THE GREAT WAR

This visual panorama of the city of Bath in the Great War draws on local newspaper archives to provide a fascinating insight into life on the home front. Kitchener is pictured on a platform addressing the crowds with a call to arms, while a 1914 cartoon shows Britannia grabbing a young man and asking "rifle or football?". The youth is not too keen. Women munitions workers are photographed in their mobcaps, and wives and mothers are seen gathering round lists of dead and wounded. A photo from behind the lines on Christmas Day 1915 shows a jolly bugler giving a fanfare as a tray of chickens is carried in - evidently designed to reassure. In 1916 in Milsom Street on Alexandra Day the ladies of the Red Cross are busily raising funds for local hospitals. In February 1917 people have some well-deserved fun when the canal is frozen over, but a more sombre note is struck by a photo of "patriotic" Bath couple Mr and Mrs Alfred Hill and their seven sons, all serving. An outdoor picture from July 1917 shows wounded soldiers, nurses and staff from Bath War Hospital, some in their beds. Leaflets are dropped on the town from an aeroplane to raise funds for Bath's war bond effort, and there is a meeting in the Guildhall to raise money for a destroyer - £2.10s from every resident needed. 136pp, softback, dozens of archive black and white photos.