David Briggs

My Book


A Quiet Lion and his Battlemaid

Over three years I transcribed and researched the letters of my grandfather Charles Lionel Briggs- written to my grandmother from the trenches - 1915-1919.

A socialist, a Christian, a Unitarian. A prolific reader. A follower of Tolstoy's ideals. Not an extraordinary man - but by no means an ordinary one.

A deep thinker who perhaps laboured too much on some important issues at the cost of making progress. As brave as any man who served in the horrors of the battlefields of France and Flanders but one for who earlier travels to even more distant parts helped set his moral compass.

At times indecisive and forgetful. A quiet revolutionary. Perhaps a slightly uncomfortable native of his times - inspired by the radical social ideals emerging at the start of the 20th century based on a great sense of duty to mankind. A gentle man and a philosopher who celebrated the human spirit, the value of education, of nature and continual learning.

Copies of two of the chapters are here:

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