I would try not to turn this into a longwinded diatribe about my love for the subject but promising this would swiftly make me a liar.
When I was give or take sixteen years old, I got a lesson on the Christmas truce.
It was religion class and the teacher announced we were going to watch a video to show how powerful compassion could be.
The lights were switched off and the old school projector switched on. With the necessary fumbling the teacher navigated youtube and found the clip she was looking for. Everyone settled in for what we assumed to be a ham-fisted life lesson.
Instead, we watched a video dramatically re-enacting how German and English soldiers met in no man’s land, swapped cigarettes and treats before quickly going back to their own trenches.
The burying of the dead and most of the gruesome bits were wisely left out.
That is what really sparked my interest in world war one, as silly as it may be. I was curious about the men who defied the customs of war to cross that muddy bit of land to meet their enemy.
Why were they fighting anyway? And why were they dug into muddy trenches?
I delved into it with increasing curiosity. I amassed a collection of books and began watching documentaries where I could find them. My thirst for knowledge has become insatiable.
On my twentieth birthday, my mother and I made the trip to the ‘Most holy place for the British Race’ to quote Churchill and I looked history in the eye. I visited Flanders Fields for the first time, made my way to Passendale and learned about the 1917 campaign that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
I even delved in my personal history, finding out about men in my family who fought and in one case faced what was then referred to as ‘the Rape of Belgium’ and became one of the civilians who fell at the hands of the jumpy German soldiers.
Since then, I have been to Ieper plenty of times and as of writing, have another trip coming up in September for my thirtieth birthday. Another milestone celebrated on what to me feels like sacred soil.
It was around the time where my interest for world war one found that fertile soil that I found myself on my grandmother’s couch with knitting needles in hand. She had been knitting all of my life and had made so many sweaters all the kids in the family wore and all the socks my grandfather wore because he swore they were better than anything you could get in the shops.
I wanted to be like her and without many qualms, she sat me down and passed on her knowledge. She taught me with the patience of a saint how to turn yarn into (incredibly holey) fabric.
I have taken off from there and taught myself more modern techniques. She gave me her collection of needles and old knitting books and seemed content I was picking up where she left off.
So, suffice to say that both knitting and the Great War have been a constant in my life but it wasn’t until about 2023 that the wires miraculously crossed.
Unfortunately, I cannot recall what exactly sparked or how I stumbled on it but I ended up knitting a sock with the pattern from the Canadian Red Cross.
They were comfy and so terribly long compared to the socks I was used to knitting. I quietly wondered what else was made that I hadn’t found yet.
So once again, curiosity grew and I delved into plenty of newspapers, women’s magazines, archives and books. Knitting for Tommy by Lucinda Gosling was the catalyst for this project.
In the back of this little book, she put a few patterns and I took it upon myself to try and make some. I immediately learned the woes of antique patterns. But i persevered an learned a lot. I asked for help on the Ravelry forums and did research myself.
I felt almost selfish keeping all of this information to myself after a while so I started with writing out a pattern from The Modern Priscilla but found it hard to figure out where to publish it.
It also kind of felt like an act of preservation. I had to dig quite a bit to find the things I did. Had to pay fees to archives and bought a physical copy of Modern Priscilla. I spent hours combing through newspaper archives key-word searching and reading articles. I read old school books to familiarize myself with old ways of knitting and the terms used.
All these things felt so hard to find and almost inaccessible and I wanted to change that.
So this is the result of that. A blog where I gather all I find and have learned. And it is also a love letter. To the men, women and children who lived through 14-18 and the people who even now bend over their needles and make a little piece of history.
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