Tcrh Brothers in War

A Reminder Of A Forgotten Sacrifice

Review

We are almost ninety years on from the end of World War I. The veterans have died out. War today is played out by an unlucky few. At home we can forget about them or argue about the rights and wrongs of what they’re doing. How can we begin to comprehend the magnitude of war that ripped the heart out of a whole generation?

Michael Walsh allows his reader to realise the bigger picture by focussing on just one family. Eight Beechey brothers went to war. Only three would come home.

Walsh focuses not only the brutal realities of war and combat but also on the fear and hopelessness felt by those left at home. Letters sent to and from the front give us a glimpse into this strange relationship between the fighting man and his loved ones.

The eight brothers lead separate lives. They each have their disappointments and their successes, their good times and their bad times. Their attitudes and behaviour are as diverse as you would expect from such a large family.

And each approaches the war differently: two join up immediately giving up their new lives as frontiersmen in Australia. Another is a reluctant conscript, the youngest is desperate for the war to last long enough for him to taste the action.

And slowly, almost inevitably, they are swallowed up by the horrific massacre. Even those that return are scarred by an experience that was as alien to them as it feels to us now.

Walsh tells their tale brilliantly, avoiding the melodrama that could have rendered this very real story little more than a Catherine Cookson saga.

By 1918 the Beechey family is robbed of some its youngest and most vibrant members. The survivors are spread far and wide. Yet they are bonded by a shared experience that is almost impossible to imagine.

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