In this Yorkshire Post programme, recorded at the 2008 Ilkley Literature
Festival, Priestley's son Tom and his co-author Neil Hanson talk about the
collection, and Priestley reads some of the letters.
JB PRIESTLEY was a man who always spoke his mind.
Through his newspaper columns, novels and radio broadcasts, the Bradford
author wrote prolifically about the folly of war, the hopes and fears of
ordinary families living under its shadow and when the world turned to nuclear
weapons he helped to found CND.
His belief in peaceful means and his abject horror at what he saw as a world
ripping itself apart is well-documented, but the man known as a life-long
socialist also volunteered to serve in the First World War.
On September 7, 1914 , six days short of his 20th birthday and a year after
writing a criticism of war for The Bradford Pioneer, Priestley
enthusiastically answered Lord Kitchener's call to arms.
Little has been known about this period of his life, but the rediscovery of
his letters written from the trenches sheds new light on Priestley's war years.
"For someone who was so staunchly Left-wing, it was an extraordinary decision,"
says Neil Hanson, who with the help of Priestley' son Tom has published the
letters, along with his other writings on war, in a new book.
"Later he tried to explain it away as some kind of test of his manhood, but
I'm not so sure. Priestley was not the kind of man to admit he had been caught
up in the general patriotic fervour of the time, but whatever the reason for
him signing up he quickly embraced Forces life.
"The letters are like the last piece of the jigsaw. For the last 50-odd years,
they have been in a box under Tom's bed, but set in the context of his other
writings it shows how the thinking of one of the country's most influential
writers of our time was shaped."
The earliest letters from the country's various training camps contain
familiar grumbles. Priestley complains about the food and the general living
conditions, but his well-rehearsed criticismsof waging war are replaced with
an enthusiasm for the physical training.
However, as the weeks go by, his mood changes. The human cost of a war, which
would claim the lives of more than a million and half Britons, had already
become apparent. Posted to the trenches of France, he despairs at the futility
of it all.
"They start out with great enthusiasm but it doesn't take long for him to
become disenchanted with the realities of the conflict," says Neil, who became
aware of Priestley's legacy as a schoolboy growing up in Shipley. "The
incessant toll of deaths and the pointless activities given to the troops to
keep them occupied fuelled his growing cynicism. He later wrote that he spent
the first year being a hero and the rest of the time trying to stay alive and
it coloured the rest of his life.
"In some of the letters you can tell he is trying to summon a cheerful tone,
perhaps for the benefit of his parents, but his fears are never very far away.
I've written various books on the people who served in the First World War and
like Priestley, most were reluctant to talk about their experience afterwards.
What they saw out there was so scarring and so horrific that they never wanted
to return to those dark places again."
Priestley's war ended in 1916 when a mortar exploded near his trench and he
was buried alive under the debris. He never returned to live in Bradford,
studying first at Cambridge and later moving to London to pursue his dream of
becoming a freelance writer
The collection of letters is not complete, but in Priestley's Wars the
surviving correspondence is included alongside his later musings on war, in
particular the manuscripts of his weekly Postscript radio broadcasts during
the Second World War. The series was designed to boost morale at home and the
BBC decided that Priestley and his Yorkshire accent might be a welcome
antidote to the clipped voices which dominated the airwaves.
"People forget what an influential figure he was during the Second World War,"
says Neil. "He was the first to break the mould of BBC's traditional Queen's
English output and his unpretentious manner was a breath of fresh air.
"Priestley wasn't afraid of speaking his mind and that often put him in direct
conflict with the Prime Minister Winston Churchill. After the Great War,
Priestley was horrified by the numbers of troops who ended up living in abject
poverty. He felt they had been failed by the country they had fought so hard
to protect.
"During the Second World War, he was determined the soldiers should return to
a Britain which was fit for heroes. Churchill wasn't thinking that far into
the future. He just wanted victory and I imagine he viewed Priestley as an
irritant.
"History shows that Priestley didn't suffer fools gladly. He was a typical
Yorkshire man who called a spade a spade but he spoke up for the ordinary
families of this country and gave a voice to their hopes and fears."
With his work banned by the Nazis and his name added to the death list of
those to be executed on the successful invasion of Britain, Priestley knew his
views could potentially land him in serious trouble. However, he never stopped
probing and desperately unhappy with the world, greedy for nuclear arms, which
emerged from the shadow of the Second World War, in 1958 he was moved to help
to found CND.
"Priestley felt people had become selfish and cynical and the community
cohesion which had existed during the war had been lost," adds Neil.
"He was a great opponent of nuclear weapons and I think we can guess what he
would have thought of today's conflicts. Priestley had an intuitive ability to
assess the mood of the country and reach into the hearts of people. All he
wanted was a better world."
THE LETTERS
1914, England
I am writing this in my hut by the feeble light of a candle; it is a very
difficult business; we are all huddled together and then we shall be shifted
to a winter camp...We wash in a lake about a quarter of a mile distant. I am
sorry to say there have been a few deaths here. However, I have never felt
better in my life.
As the weeks pass by and our training advances, the work becomes more
interesting. We have musket drill and are becoming accustomed to handling a
rifle. We have manoeuvres of various kinds, especially at night, when we
practise moving about silently in the darkness. Sometimes when we are lying on
the ground with our rifles in hand, at night, it seems like the real thing.
1915, England
It strikes me that they will need a great many more men in France shortly, so
perhaps we shall go there. I hope so. The men here are getting thoroughly
dissatisfied at being kept so long – training and training month after month...
of course we are being trained to do things that were not dreamed of in modern
warfare a year ago, and when we do go, we shall not go to our slaughter as the
Regulars did, but properly equipped with machine-guns, machine rifles (the new
invention) and bombs of every description.
1915, France
Every now and then bullets and shells come whizzing over our heads. At night,
it is very weird; we are all on the alert and star shells – like rockets – are
sent up now and again – making the place look as light as day. The nights seem
to stretch out to eternity. Rats and mice, wasps and gigantic bluebottles
abound in the dugouts. Taking it all round, we are all in good spirit, but
dreadfully filthy.
I have seen some terrible sights and endured some hardships, but believe me, I
never lost my nerve and strange to say, I felt a strange exultation of the
soul at the expense of the body... I suppose I am a man now and am certainly
going through an ordeal. Perhaps it would be as well if everybody went through
some test of manhood.
Winter has set in very thoroughly and the trenches are in a frightful state:
mud and water everywhere...I thought Bradford was a bad place for rain, but
it's the Sahara desert compared with this miserable country.
May 1916
We were near the first aid Dressing Station this morning and there I saw the
body of a young lad of 18, who came into the trenches last night for the first
time, and was shot through the head. Fate seems to have a grim and gruesome
humour of her own, and out here, she sometimes exercises it.
Priestley's Wars, edited by Neil Hanson with Tom Priestley, is
published by Great Northern, priced £18.99. Copies can be ordered through the
Yorkshire Post Bookshop on 0800 0153232 or online at
www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk.