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Postcards from the Front 1914 ~ 1918
These are some of the postcards sent by my wife's grandfather Frederick Rawlin [b. 1895] to his sweetheart Emeline Duncan - later his wife - during his period of service with the Royal Fusiliers in France & Flanders in the Great War. They are of embroidered fabric in a card backing and neatly, if incongruously, combine the military and the intimate. Strange times!
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I am uncertain of the chronological order, but notice that at top left, Lord Kitchener is still alive [d. 5th June 1916]. By bottom right, Frederick is getting rather foreward, and the Americans are of the party! [The USA declared war on Germany in April 1917, although American troops did not fight on the Western Front until 1918.]
Frederick was wounded in action at least once. He rose to the rank of sergeant and was awarded the Military Medal. He would never tell why, only that it was 'for getting the rum ration through'. All official records now appear lost.
After the war, he and Emeline wasted no time. They were married on 30th November 1918. They had two children; Arthur, born in 1920 and Winifred Lilian, my wife's mother, born in 1924. Emeline died in 1942, Arthur remarried and lived on until 1974.
