Written by Archivist, Andrew Sims.
As an archivist, you have the opportunity to see many interesting documents, books, albums, and photographs. You don’t always have the time to investigate the subject matter more thoroughly and this image is a case in point.
It made me stop.
I wanted to quickly find out a little more about the image and how it arrived at The Keep.
The bare facts of arrival are as follows, the collection of documents and photographs arrived in two batches, the first batch entered into our system 17th February 1987 and the second entered our collection 2nd January 1990. Both collections amount to 37 individual items and actually tell the story of a very interesting man.
However, it is the image shown that caught my eye. A black and white photo that has been printed as a postcard. There is no text on the reverse to indicate who the people are or where it was taken, sadly a frequent occurrence on many photographs sent to the museum. However, we can perhaps make some educated guesses by looking at the material also given at the same time. Other postcards have ‘Milton Hill Sectional Hospital. General Hospital No. 3, Southern Command.’ Stamped on the reverse.
Some information regarding this hospital can be found on the Sutton Courtenay Local History Society or The Wartime Memories Project.
I guess one should not read too much into photographs, but several things strike me about this image.
First, and most importantly, is the look in the eyes of both the men and the nursing staff, to me there is a haunted, tired quality, which is entirely understandable, some men have bandages showing, the weather might be cool and overcast as heavy coats are worn. At least one of the men has travelled far, probably from New Zealand, he is sitting at the extreme left, front row, his hat is that worn by the New Zealand Army. Some of the others may be from other armies, another postcard taken in the same location have names on the reverse, which seem to be Belgium or French in origin. I am sure we will never know how far they have travelled or indeed, what they have seen. The two nurses have the same careworn stare, is this the end of a heavy shift, one of many?
Of course much of this is my interpretation, all I know for sure is the profound feelings of empathy and regret I had looking at the image. Empathy because all of the people in this image have seen much and regret because I wish we could know more.
What interpretation would you place on this?