Lest we forget the soldiers who returned from the Somme

British soldiers negotiating a shell-cratered, winter landscape along the River Somme in late 1916. Photograph: PA

There was massive coverage of the Battle of the Somme in Saturday’s papers. So far, I haven’t read anything about the men who returned – shell-shocked, wounded and gassed. My father and two of his brothers experienced all of that. My father died in 1931 when I was three and my sister was five. My mother was desperate to pay doctor and hospital bills, as well as trying to feed us. Asking one doctor for help, she was told: “There’s always the workhouse.” My mother died in 1937, when I was nine. It was anything but “a land fit for heroes”, but it seems most people don’t want to know the unpalatable truth.

I dedicate this letter to my father, his brothers, and many like them.

War is not noble or romantic – just appalling.
Vera Koenig
Headcorn, Kent