British soldiers advancing on the Flanders front. From The Nations at War by Willis J. Abbot 1918 Edition
British Tommies cheer as they go forward to their positions on the Flanders front
"I thought we were going over the top tonight, but it has been postponed — a state of things which will inevitably lead to soul-outpourings. My state of mind is — fed up to the eyes; fear of not living to write music for England; no fear at all of death. Yesterday we had a little affair with a German patrol, which made me interested for 5 minutes; after which I lapsed into the usual horrid state of boredom. O that a nice Blighty may come soon! I do not bear pain and cold well, but do not grumble too much; so I reckon that cancels out. One cannot expect to have everything, or to make one's nature strong in a week."
Ivor Gurney, English poet and composer, writing to the composer Marion Margaret Scott, President of the Society of Women Musicians from 1915 to 1916, on 'April 4 or 5th', 1917 in the preparation for the British Arras Offensive. Gurney was a private in the Gloucestershire Regiment then in the Fauquissart-Laventie sector. A 'Blighty' was a wound that would send him back to Blighty, to England.
War Letters, Ivor Gurney, a selection edited by R.K.R. Thornton by Ivor Gurney, page 152, copyright © J. R. Haines, the Trustee of the Ivor Gurney Estate 1983, publisher: The Hogarth Press, publication date: 1984
1917-04-04, 1917, April, British train advance
