Extract from WW1 letter dated 26th April 1917
From David Taylor BEF France to May Muggridge Beckenham UK
“ ….According to the latest rumour we are to have at least 3 more weeks at special training and probably more, not necessarily here but probably somewhere further along the line…We have been given instruction that we are to salute in the one and only proper manner and any poor beggar of a rifleman whom we meet in the street in this way, or isn’t dressed just so is to be hauled up before the colonel and shot at dawn. I expect I shall be looking at something very interesting in the opposite direction when there are any men who don’t salute properly….we had a march past for practice. I suppose there is an inspection by some general or other looming in the distance. I have marched past many times before but always in the ranks, this being the first time I have had to march past at the head of my own platoon, and you feel awful lonesome out in front there by yourself with everybody watching you as you go by….”
