love for the deserter (archive)

German “Company Fool” helmet, World War I. Given to the individual who did the dumbest stunts of the day.

It’s Remembrance Weekend here so I thought I’d go down memory lane a little... (none of the photos are mine btw)

The ‘art’ included about 1,600 male volunteers, all dressed in the uniforms worn by the British army in the First World War. Each man represented a named individual who had been killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1st July 1916). When approached by the public, the men would hand out a card bearing the name, battalion and, often, the age of the man they represented. In Deller’s words, these cards were “like small tombstones”.

Every so often, the men would sing “We’re Here Because We’re Here” which was put to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.