Childhood Memories of the First World War

Interviewer: Now, do you remember much of the World War I years?

Yes!

Interviewer: Tell me about that. What do you remember about those years?

The thing I remember most, the casualty lists and we had a goodly number of men from Harriston in the service. And there were a lot of casualties. And I remember those when they would strike friends, parents; the parents were friends of my own parents. Of course in a small town, everybody knew everybody so that any casualty not only struck home to the parents but to all the people in the town. I remember particularly, 1918, when the Armistice Day, November the 11th and the attempt to have a little celebration in a small town and there weren't any young men around. A few old men, a couple of invalids and they tried to put together, they had a bass drum, tried to put together a small parade. And they paraded down the main street to the far end of the town. And they had a replica of a Kaiser which they put up on a pole and set fire to. And those were the most vivid memories I guess I have. I also remember that we would get a word when one of the chaps was coming home, what train he was on and I was at public school at the time and it was a holiday so that we could all go over to the station and meet, be there when he got off the train, yeah! I haven’t thought of those things for ages.